WASHINGTON – After President Trump unveiled his outline for the Fiscal Year 2018 budget, U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations and U.S. Senate Appropriations Committees, blasted the proposal for egregiously cutting to funding for the U.S. State Department and other critical U.S. national security programs. President Trump’s budget outline dangerously proposes to cut the U.S. State Department by 29%,

“President Trump’s budget sets in process a massive retreat of America from the world, shrinking our power and influence abroad in immeasurable ways,” said Murphy. “There are limits to the reach and scope of military power alone—investments in diplomacy, development, and humanitarian assistance head off conflicts before they require costly interventions and are vital to our national security. Yes, peace does often come through military strength, and we should maintain the world's strongest fighting force. But our adversaries now project power with propaganda, oil and gas pipelines, massive development banks, and old-fashioned bribes and intimidation. These tactics can't be countered without a reformed and well-funded State Department. I’ll do all I can on the Foreign Relations and Appropriations Committees to make sure the president’s misguided budget never becomes reality.”

Murphy is a vocal advocate of robust American diplomacy and a more limited use of military power. He penned on op-ed in the Huffington Post outlining why cuts to the State Department and diplomacy efforts make us less safe. Murphy, along with U.S. Senators Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) and Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), laid out new, forward-looking foreign policy principles to guide America’s role as a global leader in the 21st Century.

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