[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 91 (Wednesday, June 27, 2001)]
[House]
[Pages H3688-H3689]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             STRENGTHENING UNITED STATES FOREIGN ASSISTANCE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Moran) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MORAN of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a few words 
about a national priority that too often gets overlooked: humanitarian 
and development assistance in our foreign operations appropriations 
bill. That bill will probably be coming to the floor within the next 
few legislative days.
  Foreign assistance is an important and effective policy device when 
words and diplomacy are not enough or when military action is not 
appropriate. Strengthening U.S. foreign assistance will improve the 
lives of millions of people around the world and is consistent with 
America's long history of extending a helping hand to those less 
fortunate.
  We, and in fact much of the rest of the world, too easily forget the 
fact that, over the last half century, U.S. humanitarian and 
development assistance has successfully elevated the standards of 
living for millions of people.
  More than 50 nations have graduated from U.S. assistance programs 
since World War II, including such nations as France, Spain, Portugal, 
South Korea, Taiwan, Italy, and Germany. More than 30 of these former 
aid recipients have gone on to become donor nations themselves.
  Over the years, foreign assistance programs have helped create some 
of our closest allies and best trading partners and greatest 
contributors to the world's economy. For example, the United States now 
exports to South Korea in just 1 year the total amount we gave that 
country in foreign assistance during all of the decades of the 1950s 
and 1960s.
  But despite substantial global accomplishments, as we enter the new 
millennium greater disparities exist between the wealthy and the poor 
than ever before. Of the world's 6 billion people, half live on less 
than $2 a day, and one-fifth live on only $1 a day. That is more than a 
billion people, four times the population of the United States living 
on less than a dollar a day. Two billion people are not connected to 
any energy system. One and a half billion lack clean water. More than a 
billion lack basic education, health care or modern birth control 
methods.
  Poverty, disease, malnutrition, rapid population growth, and lack of 
education paralyze billions of people and extinguish hope for a better 
future. The world's population grows by about 75 million people a year, 
and most of them will live in the world's poorest countries.
  If current trends continue, the result will be more abject poverty, 
environmental damage, epidemics, and political instability; and we are 
not such an isolated island of prosperity that we are not immune from 
the ramifications of this desperation.
  From our own shores to the far reaches of the world, there is ample 
evidence that we have not been able to use our trade policies as 
effectively as we would like to address the negative impact of 
globalization which contributes to these great disparities between the 
privileged and impoverished.

                              {time}  1845

  Our failure to respond adequately to these problems is a moral 
dilemma that should be a pivotal part of our overall foreign assistance 
and international trade framework. Consider, for example, the plight of 
the seriously ill in the developing world. It is a testament to the 
failure of industrialized nations that 80 times more pharmaceutical 
products are sold in the much less populace west than on the entire 
continent of Africa.
  Each year, 300,000 people in Africa develop sleeping sickness, and 
many of them die from this disease. It is a disease that we could 
conquer if we had the political will and the research wallet to do it, 
but we do not. We will apply more of our resources to cure bald 
American males than African children with sleeping sickness.
  The most shocking global misallocation of health resources, of

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course, is the HIV/AIDS pandemic. AIDS is a global crisis which 
threatens the security of every government in every Nation including 
the United States. This is not merely a health issue, this is an 
economic, social, political, and moral issue. AIDS has destroyed 
societies, destabilized governments and has the potential to topple 
democracies. According to UNAIDS, nearly 22 million people have lost 
their lives, and over 36 million people today are living with HIV and 
AIDS. Fewer than 2 percent of them have access to life-prolonging 
therapies or basic treatment. The number of new infections of HIV is 
estimated at 15,000 every day, and it is growing. I am told that nearly 
a quarter of some of Africa's armies are HIV positive.
  In a year when President Bush has requested an $8 billion increase in 
spending over the current $320 billion defense budget, U.N. Secretary 
General Kofi Annan has called for a global AIDS trust fund to raise $7 
billion to $10 billion a year to combat the pandemic. That is almost 
the same figure as the defense spending increase that we would be 
adding to a $320 billion budget. This has to be a joint effort among 
governments, private corporations, foundations, and nongovernmental 
organizations.
  We are ranked last among the 22 OECD countries in terms of what we 
spend on foreign assistance, and we have got to spend more. It is in 
our interest as well as in the interest of the rest of the world. If we 
are going to maintain our position as the world's superpower, the most 
prosperous Nation in the history of western civilization, then we have 
got to share our resources. If we do not, we are going to pay a price 
in the long run.
  These are national priorities, and I hope that they get better 
addressed in our foreign assistance budget and in our national 
priorities generally.

                          ____________________