[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 3]
[House]
[Page 3372]
[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. Madam Speaker, I am on the floor again today to talk about 
Afghanistan--the absolute waste of life and money.
  A lot of people don't realize this, but if you go back to 2001, the 
war in Iraq and Afghanistan, we have spent over $1.5 trillion, which 
averages out to about 11.2 million tax dollars paid every hour by the 
American people.
  In today's national paper, the USA Today--and other headlines--the 
headline is this: ``Obama to Karzai: Time running out for security 
deal.''
  Madam Speaker, based on recent polls, this would be good news for the 
American people if we would not continue this relationship with 
Afghanistan. It is nothing but an absolute waste of the taxpayers' 
money, and the American people are sick and tired of it. A recent poll 
last week by Gallup showed that almost 50 percent of the American 
people believe that the war in Afghanistan was a mistake to start with.
  I can honestly say this: If it was not a mistake to start with, it is 
a mistake now that we continue to support and spend money on a corrupt 
leader named Karzai.
  Madam Speaker, as I listened to the Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel 
yesterday talk about financial pressure on our military and the budget 
that he will be supporting that Mr. Obama has proposed, I wonder why we 
in Congress are not allowed to debate on the floor of this House--and I 
am not talking about the Senate now--whether we believe that we should 
have a 10-year agreement with Afghanistan.
  Again, we are talking about spending anywhere from $3 billion to $4 
billion a month. It is borrowed money from the Chinese and Japanese, 
and we continue to raise the debt ceiling because we cannot pay our own 
bills. It is time for the Congress to speak out on behalf of the 
American people and say enough is enough.
  To be clear, this agreement that President Karzai has adamantly 
refused to sign, as The Washington Post reported earlier this week, 
during a December visit to Kabul, Hagel suggested that the late-
February NATO meeting--meaning this week--was a cutoff point for Afghan 
President Karzai to sign the bilateral strategic agreement that sets 
the terms for a post-2014 U.S. presence.
  Madam Speaker, we cannot any longer police the world. We can hardly 
afford to pay our own bills without going to foreign governments to 
borrow money.
  Madam Speaker, it is time for Congress to reach out and to say that 
we listen to the American people. When we are talking about not even 
being able to take care of our veterans, and we are going to cut 
programs for children and senior citizens, and even our veterans are in 
jeopardy of getting the benefits that they have earned, it is time for 
the American people to put pressure on Congress to have this debate 
that many of us in both parties would like to have, quite frankly.
  Madam Speaker, I have beside me a photograph of a young man named 
Eric Edmundson. Eric, in 2005, was in a Humvee that was hit by an IED 
that exploded. Eric has been in the national Wounded Warrior Project 
ads across this Nation.
  Eric is like so many of the wounded. We just don't really think about 
them every day, but we should. Eric has a wonderful wife. His mom and 
dad were able to retire to New Bern, North Carolina, which is in my 
district, and help Eric have a quality of life.
  Madam Speaker, I can honestly tell you that we have got so many 
veterans that we are going to need to take care of who earned the right 
for this government to take care of them that we are going to have a 
tsunami that is going to hit this Congress in a few years, and we are 
going to wonder how in the world can we give these wounded and their 
families what they have earned and deserve.
  Madam Speaker, it is time for this Congress to put pressure on the 
leadership of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party to force a 
discussion and a debate on the future of our financial involvement in 
Afghanistan.
  With that, Madam Speaker, I am going to ask God to please bless our 
men and women in uniform. I ask God to please bless the wounded, to 
bless the families who have given a child dying for freedom in 
Afghanistan and Iraq. And I ask God to please bless the House and the 
Senate, that we will do what is right in the eyes of God for God's 
people, and to please bless the President of the United States, that he 
also would do what is right in the eyes of God for America.

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