In Support for the Patients’ Bill of Rights Hon. Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota

approve a crucial $5 million increase in the Bank’s Administrative budget that will enable the Bank to modernize their computer systems and to insert personnel into key markets to help American businesses sell overseas. This modernization is absolutely necessary at this time to ensure that the Bank is Y2K compliant. New systems and personnel will also help the bank reduce turn-around time on decisions for both small and large U.S. exporters. The gentleman’s amendment would prohibit the Bank, as well and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation and the Trade Development Agency, from entering into any new obligations. This extremely dangerous amendment plays right into the hands of our European and Asian competitors, who will not cease to subsidize and finance the deals that their companies make simply because we will have chosen to do so; rather, this amendment will make it even more difficult for American exporters to compete in the combative worldwide marketplace, cutting U.S. jobs in the process. This amendment may save a few dollars, but I assure my colleagues that the costs in lost exports and lost jobs far outweigh any savings we may incur. I urge my colleagues to fight to preserve American jobs and vote against this amendment.