January 2008
The Senate-sponsored legislation to increase the tax deduction for families hosting exchange students gained support yesterday from Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK). The bill, S. 2252, was introduced last October by Sens. Tim Johnson (D-SD) and Norm Coleman (R-MN). It is currently pending consideration by the Senate Finance Committee.
The legislation would increase the current $50 per month deduction to $200 per month, and would index the deduction to inflation for future years.
Congress expanded the employment options available to National Security Education Program (NSEP) scholarship and fellowship award recipients in the National Defense Authorization Act of FY 2008 signed into law by President Bush this week. The legislation, H.R. 1585, was initially vetoed by Bush in December over provisions related to the war in Iraq.
At a hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday, Mr. James K. Glassman and Ms. Goli Ameri, President Bush’s nominees for Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs and Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) respectively, praised the value of exchanges and pending their confirmation, pledged to build on those programs during their terms in office.
Ambassadors Marc Grossman and Thomas Pickering told Congress that U.S. embassies overseas are in need of more people with better training and resources to do the job of diplomacy.
The Alliance is pleased to welcome a new intern, Grace Stafford of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. Grace will be with us until May, and among other projects, will play a lead role in the arrangements for Alliance Advocacy Day.
The Alliance completed visits early this year to consular posts in Asia to discuss visa processing. We visited the following posts: Beijing, Shanghai, Bangkok, New Delhi, and Mumbai.
