I rise to offer some comments on the bill before us, the foreign operations appropriations bill.

Today we are considering the fiscal year 2002 foreign operations appropriations bill. I ask my fellow Senators to consider this: The total foreign assistance spending in this legislation represents just .79 percent of the entire $1.9 trillion Federal budget. That is less than half of what it was just 15 years ago, and it is barely .1 percent of GDP. An even smaller amount of the bill's funding is for foreign development assistance, less than .6 percent of the budget.

Anemic U.S. foreign assistance spending is not new news, but it is part of a very sad legacy of more than two decades of declining foreign assistance spending.

But at precisely the time when the events of September 11 have driven home what an integrated and globalized world we live in, a world that requires us, I believe, to reexamine the basic underpinnings of U.S. national security policy, it is baffling that the United States remains on a course to tie a post-World War II low in foreign assistance spending and a 50-year low of overseas assistance as a share of Government spending.

I do not mean this as any criticism of the managers of the bill. Given the administration's request and the allocations of the subcommittee, they have done an excellent job of putting together a $15.5 billion bill. But in light of September 11, I strongly believe that the fundamental assumptions regarding how best to safeguard U.S. national security interests over the long term require rethinking and reexamination. As America undertakes a war on terrorism, we must declare war on global poverty as well, and we must do so because our national security demands no less.

If we are going to win this war against terrorism, we have to be willing to invest in the lives and livelihoods of the people of the developing world. For it is the poverty and the resulting political instability and institutional weakness of developing countries, many of them failed or near failed states, which provide the ecosystem in which terrorists, terrorist operations, terrorist recruitment, and terrorist organizations are able to flourish.

The World Bank estimates that 1.2 billion residents of poor nations live on less than $1 a day. In South Asia alone, more than 550 million people, 40 percent of the total population, live on less than $1 a day. In sub-Saharan Africa it is close to 50 percent of the population. I know the Chair is eminently familiar with this. Close to 50 percent of the population--that is, 291 million people, or more than the entire population of the United States--live in that abject, grinding poverty.

All in all, about 2.8 million people, half of the world's population, live in poverty, getting by on $2 a day. That is less than a cappuccino at Starbucks.

The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations estimates that nearly 800 million people in the developing world are undernourished, 1.2 billion lack access to safe drinking water, 2.9 billion have inadequate access to sanitation, and over 1 billion people are either unemployed or underemployed.

For all too many of these people, there is precious little hope in their daily life, and they experience a world in which progress or betterment is virtually impossible. Yet, as a recent Congressional Budget Office study on the role of foreign aid and development reports: ``U.S. spending on foreign aid has fluctuated from year to year but has been on a downward path since the 1960s.''

In 1962, the United States spent more than 3 percent of the budget outlays on foreign assistance. Today, as I noted, it is barely six-tenths of 1 percent. This is unconscionable. Interestingly enough, people do not understand this. I often ask people: How much do you think the foreign operations budget is as a percent of the overall budget? Some will say 5 percent, some will say 10 percent, some will say 15 percent, but nobody says less than 1 percent.

Yet that is the fact. The United States spends less than $30 a year for each of its citizens helping those in the developing world, compared with a median per capita contribution of $70 by other industrialized nations. This has not always been the case and, I would argue, it is also not becoming of America's position and role in the world.

Between 1950 and 1968, the United States contributed more than half of the official development assistance provided by countries in the OECD Development Assistance Committee, and by 1978 we were contributing less than a third. By 1998, it was less than a sixth, where it languishes today.

Some would question why this matters, or they would argue that it is the responsibility of others, not us, to address these development needs.

The short answer is that it matters because development assistance is a critical tool for the protection and promotion of U.S. interests around the globe. It matters because poverty leads to financial instability, infectious disease, environmental degradation, illegal immigration, drugs, narcotic trafficking, and it fuels the hatred of ``have-not'' nations for the ``have'' nations, of which the United States heads the list.

Although not the sole cause of perceived grievances in an increasingly unequal and increasingly globalized world, poverty is a principal cause of human suffering, and the political instability that results as well.

In its worst form, poverty creates the political, social, economic, and institutional instability and chaos that leads to failed states, zones of anarchy, and lawlessness, with semi-legitimate governments, or no real functioning government, which are unable to offer their people a positive vision of the future and instead utilize the United States as a scapegoat for their hopelessness.

It matters because into the void of failed states, and lives without hope or the prospect for betterment, step terrorists, fanatics, extremists, and others who take advantage of these situations for their own ends.

If a state is unable to educate its young, terrorists and extremists will only be too happy to indoctrinate the young, poisoning their minds. If a country is unable to offer young men or women the prospect of a job and self-respect, terrorists, fanatics, and extremists are more than happy to offer conspiracy theories to explain misfortune and offer alternative employment in their criminal enterprises. And if a government is unable to offer its people a positive prospect for the future, terrorists or fanatics are able to offer their own distorted view of the world and twisted vision of the future.

It matters because poverty creates the swamp in which the terrorists find protection and sustenance, and it matters in short because our national security interests and the lives and safety of our citizens depend on us recognizing this. It matters, I strongly believe, because self-interest aside, the United States has a strong moral global obligation, especially in cases such as Afghanistan and now Pakistan, to provide assistance to those who have helped us in the past and who stand with us today in this war on terrorism.

Foreign assistance and development assistance are valuable elements in our toolbox to respond to the events of September 11, and in cases where diplomacy or military force cannot be used, they may be the only tools available.

When nations who are friends or allies of the United States were subject to terrorist attacks prior to September 11, all too often the U.S. reaction was to bemoan the rough neighborhood in which these nations live and shrug our shoulders as if nothing could be done. But September 11 proved with startling clarity all of the globe is a neighborhood today, our neighborhood, and we must see what can be done; for if we continue to do nothing, it is at our peril. I would not argue that the United States should waste foreign assistance spending on ineffective programs, or on projects where rampant corruption prevents us from assuring that our assistance reaches those in need. But a report last year by the Overseas Development Council suggests that many aid programs have been successful. They have contributed to advances in public health, sanitation, and education.

As a first step in this new war on global poverty, then, it is critical that the government, private foundations, and non-governmental organizations come together to identify areas where increased spending can make a difference, especially in the world's poorest regions. This review must also look at what government and private voluntary donors have learned about how to make delivery of assistance more effective.

This evaluation should also extend to the activities of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and other multilateral development and lending institutions. Where these institutions need to be reformed, and I believe they do, their activities should be redefined today.

Once this evaluation is complete, I believe it is critical we reverse the past two decades of a downward trend in U.S. foreign assistance spending and dramatically increase funding, including that channeled through foundations and nongovernmental organizations.

According to the U.N. Development Program, some $40 billion a year--remember, we are at $15 billion--would provide water and sanitation, reproductive health, basic health and nutrition, and basic education for all in need in the developing world.

To help meet our share of this need, I believe and propose we triple the foreign assistance budget within 5 years, bringing it back up to what it was before, roughly, and this is still a meager amount, 0.3 percent of gross domestic product. I fully believe such an increase in United States foreign assistance spending would be leveraged by increases in assistance contributions by other potential public and private donors.

In addition to traditional economic development programs, our renewed focus on fighting international poverty must also focus on the creation of public goods, democratic institutions, rule of law, functioning and legitimate educational systems which allow public and economic progress and growth to take root and flourish. The image of ``draining the swamp'' of terrorists has become a commonplace metaphor, but the metaphor has its limits. The environmental elements which contribute to the germination and flourishing of terrorists and extremists cannot, in fact, simply be drained away. Indeed, I am worried that if we do not act wisely and address every dimension and level of this war on terrorism we run the risk of fueling a new generation of terrorists.

Rather, we must adopt a long-term, carefully crafted strategy to reduce and perhaps even eliminate factors such as global poverty, which underlie and foster terrorism. So I call upon my colleagues to recognize that such long-term efforts are as much a part of the burden of global leadership and the war on terrorism as cruise missiles and aircraft carriers. Meeting this obligation of leadership demands and requires a serious, long-term commitment of the necessary resources by the United States.

As one Senator, I am prepared to make that commitment and I hope my colleagues are as well.