Ranking Member DeLauro Statement to House Rules Committee on the 2024 State and Foreign Operations Funding Bill
House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT-03) delivered the following remarks at the House Rules Committee in opposition to Republicans’ 2024 State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations bill:
Thank you, Chairman Cole, Ranking Member McGovern, and members of the Rules Committee.
I want to begin with some comments from President Trump’s Former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. He had this to say in response to this bill’s proposed cut of the State and Foreign Operations allocation by nearly one-third: “When we don’t lead, we create a vacuum that will be filled instead by China.” He continued, “America’s leadership means more than just military capability; diplomacy and foreign assistance are part of it too. This proposed budget would upend that relationship by gutting our civilian toolkit and depriving America of the diplomatic leadership whose benefits I have seen last a lifetime.” End quote.
We are told that this 2024 State and Foreign Operations funding bill is tough on our adversaries, but the opposite is true. This bill cedes America’s position as the leader of the global community, it weakens our national security, it shortchanges foreign assistance, it hinders our ability to address the climate crisis, and it harms women around the world.
This is a reversal of the United States’ historic position on the world stage and it promotes isolationism. We are supposed to be the leaders of the free world. The majority is diminishing the United States, what we stand for, and what our values are – for our own people and for people around the world who look to us for inspiration and hope.
Damage has already been done as partners and allies wonder whether the United States will be with them or whether they will be forced to turn to the Chinese Community Party or to Russia to get needed investment or support in international institutions.
The PRC has increased development spending and financing by 430 percent over the last ten years of available data. With China surpassing the United States as the largest trading partner in many countries in Latin American and in Africa, China has more embasseies and conlsulates, diplomats and foreign assistance than anyone else in the world. They are challenging our model of democracy and capitalism around the world and going virtually unchallenged. They led the world in providing vaccines during the pandemic with an inferior product because we were unable to move in an international way to provide vaccines to the rest of the world.
This bill is an unfathomable thirty-one percent cut to our nation’s ability to engage in diplomacy and to project soft power. But knowing such a cut would be irresponsible and lead to negative repercussions around the world, this bill claws back billions of dollars – $11 billion of which comes from the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, part of the Inflation Reduction Act. And I might add that when you look to recissions, recissions then are cutting some of the most valuable programs that we have.
With regard to Israel, the continuing resolution which has been offered by the majority in fact would cut the state foreign operations allocation by 8.1 percent. That is an 8.1 percent cut to the funds that we provide to Israel.
Mr. Cole, Mr. Joyce, Mr. Diaz Balart, Mr. Reschenthaler – you are all appropriators. You have experience enacting spending bills. You know what we should be doing right now, and this is not it. We are out of time. We cannot pass 11 appropriations bills in the House and the Senate and get a signature from the President by September 30. The urgent issue is keeping the lights on. Everyone in this room knows keeping the U.S. government running will require bipartisanship. Let's get to work in that effort.
Democrats and Republicans already compromised to pass the debt limit bill, but because House Republicans immediately reneged, they have moved us to the brink of a shutdown.
Thank you, and I yield back.