Rand Fishbein served as one of two professional staff members of the Senate Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee (majority staff) responsible for drafting and overseeing the implementation of the annual U.S. foreign assistance budget. This budget totaled approximately $13-$15 billion annually.

Oversight and budget responsibilities covered all titles of the foreign operations bill to include: Multilateral Economic Assistance, Bilateral Economic Assistance, Military Assistance and Export Assistance.

General responsibilities also included:

• Review and analysis of the President's annual budget request for foreign assistance (function 150 account);
• Preparation of the annual Senate committee report;
• Joint preparation of the annual House-Senate conference report and statement of managers;
• Preparation and analysis of all supplemental appropriations requests for foreign assistance;
• Preparation of subcommittee budget and oversight hearings;
• Review and initiation of General Accounting Office (GAO), Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) and USAID Inspector General (IG) investigations;
• Handling of agency and public correspondence; and
• Representation of subcommittee in discussions with executive branch agencies, NGOs, the congressional authorization and budget committees, and constituent interests.

Represented the Senate Appropriations committee at World Bank/IMF annual meetings (1988-1990) and the Asian Development Bank annual meeting in Beijing (1988). Conducted overseas field investigations in China, the Philippines, Morocco, and Israel.

Conceived of and authored bill and report language responsible for the establishment of over a dozen new initiatives.