[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 102 (Thursday, July 9, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H7923-H7924]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     TROUBLING INCREASES IN STATE-FOREIGN OPERATIONS APPROPRIATIONS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from North Carolina (Ms. Foxx) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, the vote that I took this afternoon on H.R. 
3081 was one of the toughest votes that I have had to take in this 
House since I have been here in my 4\1/2\ years. The problem with the 
bill and with the decision that had to be made is because the bill 
contained funding for aid to Israel, our best friend in the world.
  I have always been and will continue to be an extremely strong 
supporter of Israel. Israel has always been a good friend to the United 
States, and the people of this country and the people of Israel share 
the same values. However, the bill had so many flaws that it made it 
very difficult for a pro-life fiscal conservative such as myself to 
vote for the bill despite my very strong support for Israel.
  The bill, when emergency supplemental funds were not taken into 
account, was still 32 percent more than the regular fiscal year 2009 
appropriations. I am taking the liberty of using some of the figures 
from my colleague, the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Price), which were 
also presented today on the floor in terms of explaining the bill that 
we voted on this afternoon.
  We are facing a fiscal crisis in this country. This administration 
and this Congress, led by Speaker Pelosi, are spending this country 
into a terrible, terrible situation. We are mortgaging our children and 
grandchildren's future with excess spending; and it has to stop 
somewhere.
  Had this bill merely contained the funding for Israel, it would have 
been very easy for me to have supported it, although I was quite 
concerned that the bill reduced the funding for Israel by 7.2 percent 
below last year's funding level and 23.3 percent below the request. 
But, as I said earlier, the total bill had an increase of 33.8 percent 
compared to last year.
  One of the most troubling increases in this bill was a 20 percent 
increase to the United Nations Population Fund and a 19 percent 
increase to International Family Planning. The United Nations 
Population Fund aids China's one-child policy, coercive abortion, and 
sterilization. International Family Planning goes to organizations that 
promote and provide abortion services through International Planned 
Parenthood Federation and Marie Stokes International.
  In addition, the Democrats had rejected four cost-cutting Republican 
amendments that had been presented which could have made this bill a 
lot more palatable to the 97 Republicans who voted against it.
  Another problem with the bill is that there was a false assumption 
that the Obama administration will live up to

[[Page H7924]]

its promise of no more war supplementals for Iraq and Afghanistan. The 
President has gone back on every promise that he made during the 
campaign. He has already asked for a supplemental this year, says it 
was a carryover from last year, but that won't happen again. However, 
before the ink was dry on the amended full committee report of this 
bill, the chairman of the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, 
Congressman Murtha, publicly stated that another supplemental is 
necessary to fund the troops because of the low fiscal year 2010 
Defense allocation.
  So the promise was that all of the money for the war was going to be 
here and we wouldn't have to do more supplementals. That isn't going to 
happen.
  This bill also avoids making hard fiscal choices about spending 
abroad while we face a financial crisis here. This is not the way we 
should be going. We should be funding our friends and our allies. We 
should be helping Israel which is the only true democracy in the Middle 
East and who stands by us year after year, day after day. But funding 
things like abortion and international family planning is not the way 
to go.

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