[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 138 (Wednesday, October 13, 1999)]
[House]
[Page H9960]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           HELP AMERICAN CITIZENS BEFORE GIVING MONEY ABROAD

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FOLEY. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to get up for a moment and talk 
about some of the events of the past couple of weeks and some of the 
acrimony that exists in this Chamber and some of the dialogue that 
takes place. We had a very difficult and interesting vote on foreign 
aid the other day and foreign operations.
  It caused me to think, as I looked at some editorial comments. It was 
interesting, and I want to quote from Charley Reese from the Port St. 
Lucie Tribune, ``Real Help For North Carolina Heading Overseas''. He 
says ``Think this through: People who have lost everything in eastern 
North Carolina to the floods can get help from the U.S. Government in 
the form of loans at interest.
  ``I dare say many of those who lost their homes had not paid off 
their mortgages. The obligation to pay the morality remains even if the 
house is gone and rendered unlivable. So in essence, the federal 
assistance consists of an offer to most folks to make two mortgage 
payments instead of one.''
  So we look at our own real-life circumstances in this city and in 
this country, and we say to ourselves, yes, we have a responsibility 
for foreign aid. We have a responsibility to help other nations. But 
when do we start focusing on the American public and the American 
taxpayer?
  The President suggested the other day he would like to wipe out $5.7 
billion worth of foreign aid that have been given over the past years 
in the form of loans. To some of that, I give credit. Some of the 
countries cannot repay the money.
  But let us think of our experience over the last couple of decades of 
American foreign policy. Let us think of the billions of dollars that 
have been swept out of the taxpayers' wallets in the United States and 
are now residing in Zurich, Switzerland in the form of secret bank 
accounts by people like Duvalier, people like the Marcoses, people that 
have plundered the United States foreign aid not to help the countrymen 
that they were supposedly elected to serve, but to put it in their own 
bank accounts, and to run off with our cash.
  Now, we are going to wipe out debt, and we are going to just erase 
the balance sheet and say they do not have to pay us back. Yet, in 
North Carolina, if one's home is destroyed by an earthquake or a 
hurricane or some other devastation, one is told to come to the line 
and borrow from the U.S. government, and one can make two payments at 
once.
  We also hear that we cannot give any kind of tax break for 
individuals. We cannot eliminate the marriage penalty. We cannot give 
debt relief on the estate tax relief. We cannot do anything to reduce 
the cost of insurance by giving credits to small business owners or 
self-employed, because we cannot afford a tax cut. It is selfish. It is 
stingy. It is not proper. It will explode the deficit.
  We have to use the surplus for other things that we think are good 
for the American public. We should spend our resources, our surplus on 
things that we think are good for people rather than people voicing 
their opinion.
  Then I started to think of the real overriding question, which is: 
Surplus? What are we all talking about? A surplus? There is $5.7 
trillion worth of debt. There is no surplus. There may be an excess 
cash to expenditures. But, clearly, there is no surplus.
  But if we keep doing these things and paying money in all kinds of 
different accounts and different proposals, we will never balance the 
budget, and no American taxpayer will get any relief.
  We sent money to Russia recently, I can remember, through the IMF, 
and nobody can account for the hundreds of millions of dollars that are 
residing in the bank accounts all over the world. The Russians never 
got helped by our cash. It went into the pockets of people who 
purloined the money and took it for their own use.
  We keep saying to ourselves, well, we will do better next time. We 
will put some oversight panels together. We will look at the money and 
the expenditures. Yet, each time, we fall into the trap once again of 
saying we better add some more money to the appropriations bill because 
we have got to help out another one of our neighbors in trouble, a 
neighbor overseas.
  Then I think when I ride around at night, how many homeless Vietnam 
veterans are probably on the streets of our Nation's capital, homeless 
Vietnam veterans who are going without health care, medical care of any 
kind because we cannot help them. They fought the good fight, but we 
have got too many other things on our plate.
  We cannot sacrifice individual appropriations bills, because we are 
all trying to protect our reelections. We cannot make our government 
more fiscally sound because we are too interested in racking up totals 
that are mind boggling on their face.
  Our interest payments are like $247 billion a year on the debt we 
have now at $5.7 trillion. So we will never get ahead if we continue 
this. But what about giving or, as the headline says, forgiving our 
debts. What about forgiving some of the debts that the American public 
has every day that they work and pay their taxes to help support this 
government, and we seem tone deaf to be able to turn our 
responsibilities directed towards them.
  I say, pay down the debt. But I also say let us not start attacking 
the majority party here for being cheap as I heard last week. We did 
not recognize our responsibilities. So let us focus a little bit more 
on the American public, the American taxpayer, helping our own 
citizens, our community before we start giving money away abroad.

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