[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 158 (2012), Part 10]
[House]
[Pages 14506-14507]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                    TIME TO RETHINK OUR FOREIGN AID

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Poe) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. POE of Texas. Over the last week, we have watched as anti-
American groups throughout the world have killed Americans, attacked 
our embassies, had protests, burned the American flag, and destroyed 
our property in many parts of the world. These events and events that 
have preceded them bring up that question again that these countries 
that we give aid to seem to be countries where there is violence 
against America. So I want to spend a few minutes talking about the aid 
Americans, when they write that check to the government, our 
government, spend all over the world.
  This is a map of countries in the world that the United States of 
America taxpayers give assistance to worldwide. You'll see there are 
three colors. The red are colors that the United States gives foreign 
aid to. And you can see that's most of the countries in the world--and 
it is most of the countries. There are 191 countries in the world. 
Sometimes there are 193, depending on whether those last two are really 
countries or not. And American taxpayers give money to 158 of them. So 
you see those that are in the red. The green represents countries that 
we give military aid to. And the few little blue countries--a couple in 
Europe, a couple in Africa--those are countries we don't give any money 
to. By far, the minority. So you see the massive world as we know it, 
American money goes to most of it.
  Now you notice over here there's a red block in this part of the 
world. And I'm sure, Mr. Speaker, you would recognize this massive 
country here. That's Russia. Yes, American aid goes to Russia. And did 
you know even though China controls so much of our debt, American 
money, yes, goes to China as well.
  So maybe we need to rethink how we do this. With all the problems 
we've got in the United States, the taxpayers are writing checks for 
countries throughout the world. And here's how we vote on foreign aid. 
And I suspect the Senate does it the same way. We put all the countries 
in a list and in a bill and the State Department usually submits an 
amount of money they would like us to give to this country. And then 
this House votes ``up'' or ``down'' on all 158 countries.
  Now maybe we ought to do business a little better. Maybe we should 
vote country by country. Some say, Oh, it'll take too long. Hey, we're 
talking about American money here. It wouldn't take very long at all. I 
think that if we voted ``up'' or ``down'' country per country, most of 
these countries are not going to get any aid from the United States in 
a bipartisan way. Of

[[Page 14507]]

course, probably Israel would. And 80 percent of the money given to 
Israel is spent back in the United States. I think most Members support 
Israel. Maybe one or two other countries.
  Let's vote ``up'' or ``down'' country by country. And some of these 
countries that we've had unrest in in the last couple of weeks--like 
Libya, like Egypt--maybe we need to reevaluate the money we send to 
them. At the very least, what we ought to do in countries like Libya 
and Egypt, and in some of these other countries that are destroying 
American property as we speak, who have looted, pillaged, and destroyed 
our embassies, like in Egypt, the money that we're going to give them 
in aid, take a portion of it out to help rebuild the embassies that are 
in that country and pay for the property damage, and probably even take 
money out we've given to Libya and pay reparations to the four 
Americans that were killed in Libya.
  Let's use some common sense when we're spending money overseas. And 
maybe we shouldn't be trying to go all over the world and play nice 
with people. We've had a foreign aid problem since before I was born. 
We continue to give money to countries in the hope that they will like 
us. Well, how's that working for you? Not too good, is the way that I 
see it.
  Mr. Speaker, we don't need to continue to support countries like 
Pakistan. I'm astonished we will still give money to Pakistan. They 
harbored Osama bin Laden. They put in prison the informant that told us 
where he was hiding. I believe some of the money we give Pakistan ends 
up in the hands of the Taliban and corrupt military government. But yet 
we keep paying them.
  This summer the House did vote to cut $625 million from Pakistan. But 
yet when the CR came through last week--the continuing resolution--that 
money is back in, going to Pakistan. Pakistan is just one of many 
examples, Mr. Speaker. We don't need to pay these countries to hate us. 
We don't need to pay them to betray us. They will do it for free.
  And that's just the way it is.

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