New York Times: Colin Powell: American Leadership — We Can’t Do It for Free
Colin Powell, secretary of state from 2001 to 2005

“…The administration’s proposal, announced Tuesday, to slash … the State Department and foreign assistance budget signals an American retreat, leaving a vacuum that would make us far less safe and prosperous. While it may sound penny-wise, it is pound-foolish. … The idea that putting Americans ‘first’ requires a withdrawal from the world is simply wrongheaded, because a retreat would achieve exactly the opposite for our citizens. … Do we really want to slash the State Department and … USAID at such a perilous moment? The American answer has always been no. Yet this budget proposal has forced us to ask what America’s role in the world is and what kind of nation we seek to be. … America is great when we’re the country that the world admires, a beacon of hope, and a principled people who are generous, fair, and caring. … If we’re still that nation, then we must continue to devote this small but strategic one percent of our federal budget to this mission…” (5/24).