YOUR i

YOUR i

CONGRESSMAN

REPORTS

Bf Rep. Burr P. Harrison

Washington—The foreign aid authorzatioin hill now has passed the House apd pends in the Senate. It is important to, remember that the foreign aid program goes through Congress twice each year. First an authorization bill must be voted. This, and the substantial carryovers, set the limits' of ikw, obligations for the next fiscal

year^ Thereafter, an appropriation hill must be passed to provide the money to cover the authorized spending. The Congress is not obliged to appropriate as much as it authorized, and frequently does not. The authorization and the appropriation are considered by enf. tirely different committees in both House and Senate.

I

>

Last week., the House Foreign Affairs Omwutic? recommended that there be authonZeiAJor mutal security.more c&mmonlyHtntSwn as foreign aid.a total of approximately $3.6 billion Gr the fiscal year beginning July 1. This figure was $267 million less than President Eisenhower asked. After extended debate, the House voted to cut another $100 million from the .authorization*bill, eliminating that much of an increase over Presidential recommendation which the committee had written in for Development Loan Fund, which lend; money to “urderdeveloped" countries.

! As the bill was sent to the Senate! it included a provision establishing under the Secretary of' State a new office of Inspector General and Comptroller, independent of the operating officials of foreign aid. This office would have responsibility for uncovering and remedying inefficiency and waste in the worldwide mutual assistance program. Such defects in administration have done much to increase concern and doubt in Cogress as to true effectiveness of our foriegn aid operations.

Each year, Mr. Eisenhower has insisted that the full amount of his foreign aid budget request was the minimum which should be provided, in the interest of the national security of thf i United