On February 13, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations and the House Foreign Affairs Committees to testify on behalf of the President’s FY09 International Affairs Budget request. The request is $39.5 billion, an 8.5% increase above FY08 spending levels (including emergency funding). During both hearings, Secretary Rice thanked the Committees “for significantly increasing foreign assistance during this Administration. Really foreign assistance had been essentially flat-lined for almost two decades and it was time for the United States to do more.” Secretary Rice also thanked the Congress for its bipartisan support over the last several years in helping to rebuild the capacity of the State Department.
