[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 2]
[House]
[Pages 2824-2825]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              AFGHANISTAN

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
North Carolina (Mr. Jones) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JONES. Mr. Speaker, I am on the House floor today to share with 
my colleagues several recent headlines from our national papers.
  From The Washington Post on January 30:

       After billions in U.S. investment, Afghanistan roads are 
     falling apart.

  This article goes on to describe the Afghan road network, built with 
U.S. tax dollars, as a ``$4 billion project that was once a symbol of 
promise in post-Taliban Afghanistan but is now falling apart.''
  Another headline from January 30 from The New York Times:

       U.S. aid to Afghanistan flows on despite warnings of 
     misuse.

  This report informs us that two global firms hired by the United 
States 3 years ago have found that none of the 16 Afghan ministries can 
be counted on to keep American aid from being stolen or wasted.
  Most recently, this week Reuters published an article titled, ``U.S. 
aid plan seeks to shield Afghanistan from end to war economy,'' which 
details a new initiative from the U.S. Agency for International 
Development that would spend almost $300 million to prop up the Afghan 
economy.
  Mr. Speaker, the common factor in these articles is that each 
describes in

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alarming detail the absolute waste of American tax dollars overseas. 
How can we in good conscience tell the American people we are going to 
continue to send their money to Afghanistan for 10 more years under the 
Bilateral Strategic Agreement that the United States is currently 
negotiating with President Karzai?
  I hope President Karzai will not sign the agreement. It would be the 
best thing to happen to the American taxpayer.
  Ironically, today or tomorrow we are going to raise the debt ceiling. 
This is after already raising it by $230 billion in October of 2013, 
with $30 billion reserved for Afghanistan. This is not right or fair to 
the American people.
  We need to stop the insanity in Afghanistan, which could be done if 
the leaders of the House and Senate would allow Members of both parties 
to bring bills related to this issue to the floor for a vote.
  In addition to the money we are spending, how many more American 
lives must be lost overseas before Congress decides to act? We cannot 
continue to waste American money and precious lives in this manner. It 
is time to end the abuse of the American resources in Afghanistan.
  With that, I will ask God to continue to bless our men and women in 
uniform and their families, and ask God to please continue to bless 
America.

                          ____________________