Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2024
Floor Speech
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of this amendment, which eliminates $230,599,000--a lot of money whether you are in Arizona, Pennsylvania, or Washington, D.C.--in funding to the U.S. Agency for International Development, funds appropriated to the President capital investment fund.
I once again bring up the amendment to address the massive spending that is appropriated to USAID. The capital investment fund is for expenses for overseas construction and related costs and for the procurement and enhancement of information technology and related capital investments.
We all want a new office. We all want a new computer. We all want a new phone. We have massive debt right now. We are going to run $2.2 trillion behind this year alone.
I don't know who at home when they can't pay their bills, when they are literally borrowing money from their enemy, goes out and spends more.
We are not even talking about spending more on our own home or our own phone or our own computer. We are talking about spending more on somebody else's and, quite honestly, in many cases in places where they don't even like America.
Mr. Chairman, our country is now $33 trillion in debt. How in good conscience can we continue with this spending?
This is the time to invest in the United States of America and our constituents who are struggling to pay for their groceries, to pay for gasoline, to pay for their ever-rising electricity bill, and it is going to keep on rising.
Your gas prices are going to keep going up, and so are your food prices because of the policies of this administration.
Mr. Chairman, we don't have any more money to spend on things that might be great to have, might be nice to have, might make us feel good. We don't have the money. When you don't have the money, you don't spend it.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I agree with the gentlewoman from the other side of the aisle. We should be countering China. If we are going to use USAID to do that, well, that is all well and good, too, but let's enumerate how we are actually going to use this money to counter China.
What we are expected to believe is that they need this money, and we are going to counter China somewhere in Eastern Europe. Maybe we are, but let's make the case.
What you are asking is the American people to borrow money from China to then somehow counter China and just give all these folks that are smarter than all the rest of us all the money, and I am sure they will figure it out.
I don't know if you are keeping up with current events, but China is eating our lunch right now while we are spending all this money that we are borrowing from China.
I think the case makes itself. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman, when everyday Americans, like the folks I have the honor to represent in Pennsylvania's 10th Congressional District, have too many expenses, they are simply forced to cut back. They don't have any choice.
That is what they had to do in this high inflation, high cost of living, Biden economy where gas, food--seemingly everything. I don't know that anything has gone down. For sure, food, gas, electricity prices are just going up and up.
So what do folks do at home?
They don't go out to eat as often. They don't have a meal out with their family. They might have to cancel a few subscriptions, put off some repairs around the house, put off buying a new pair of shoes, you name it. The point is that they pare back their spending sometimes to the bare bones because they have to keep a roof over their head and food in their bellies.
Now, the paring back that I just discussed is something that this body, this institution has been unwilling, unable, and simply refused to do now for decades. Decades, $33 trillion worth of that.
Many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle have highlighted via amendment the wasteful, bloated spending that this place has perpetuated, especially during the pandemic; unbelievable amounts during the pandemic.
I appreciate the work of the chairman. He has worked diligently to bring this thing back closer in line with some reality, but there are still places we can cut.
This amendment reduces the amount of international disaster assistance from $3.9 billion to zero.
Now, everybody is going to take a gasp.
Zero international disaster assistance?
Ladies and gentlemen, in our country, the International Disaster Assistance account is zero. It has dried up.
The good gentleman from Florida, his State just suffered a hurricane. There isn't any disaster money for them. What about the folks in Hawaii? What about the folks all across the country dealing with floods and fires?
There isn't any money in the United States of America for them, but heaven forbid, we have to make sure we are all around the globe helping all those folks at the expense of the people in America.
I am not trying--and no one is trying--to be punitive or cruel here. The fact is that this process is broken and the results of it are broken, and the American people are tired of being broke from what we do here in Washington.
This is a nearly $4 billion line item that we simply can't afford. We want to be helpful. Every single one of us wants to help, but we are using the money that other people earn to help other people overseas while the people that earn the money are struggling, and that is immoral and unacceptable.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I am glad that the gentlewoman mentioned people of faith and their care for people, not only in their community but around the globe. It is awesome. In the church that I attend, that is exactly what we do, and that is exactly what we should do--be our brother's keeper, be our brother's and sister's keeper--but the good Lord never said force your brother to be someone else's keeper. That is between them. And that is exactly what we are doing here is forcing people that can ill afford their own bills and their own tragedies that they are suffering in the United States to pay for the tragedies in other places. That is immoral.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, this amendment reduces the amount of economic support funding from $2.9 billion to $1.8 billion.
Like a few of my colleagues on this side of the aisle have said this week, this is a necessary haircut to a program that has ballooned massively just since two Presidents ago.
In the 5 years from fiscal year 2018 to 2023, this account went from $1.8 billion to $4.3 billion. People wonder, how do we get $33 trillion in debt? You get it a billion at a time just adding up.
Let's look at the use of these funds from the report of this bill. Cooperative projects, sustainability challenges relating to water resources, agriculture, and energy storage. That is interesting. Have you ever heard of Flint, Michigan? They are concerned about their water resources.
Agriculture? Our farmers aren't allowed to buy fertilizer--or can't afford it in this country based on the policies of the administration.
Energy storage? We are paying for batteries overseas. It is not enough that we force our own constituents to use unreliable power, now we are going to force the rest of the world to do it and pay for it.
How about scientific research collaboration in the Middle East? That is awesome because other than our one ally there, there is not much scientific collaboration that I am interested in participating in-- certainly not with Iran.
The Middle East partnership initiative, which according to the State Department supports governments and their citizens to achieve shared political economic and stability objectives, how much money are we going to throw in this money pit year after year after year, decade after decade?
In the administration's budget request they will say the use of funds to foster economic resilience in Greenland. Are they in peril in Greenland?
Strengthen transparent governance and promote civil society and independent media in South Asia and provide rapid, flexible support and assistance to government and civil society in Africa.
These are all laudable things. The question is can you afford them, and we cannot. I remind everybody we are simply borrowing from China to pay for these things--all of these things.
Reasonable people can disagree about whether the American taxpayer dollars need to promote civil society or scientific collaboration abroad; however, the fact remains we must find places to save, and this reverts a highly inflated item--highly inflated. Again, $1.8 billion to $4.3 billion in 5 years.
I would just ask what is the metric we use to determine whether this is successful or does anything at all to support the American people?
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, again, we all want to do what we can, but we shouldn't be borrowing money from China, our number one adversary. We are borrowing it from them allegedly to counter them, and, oh, by the way, while we are borrowing it from them to counter them, we are allowing them to operate in our financial markets without the same controls and restrictions we place on American companies.
That is ridiculous. It is so ridiculous that it probably costs us more to counter them. We could do much more by just not allowing that, but, instead, we are going to allow that and take taxpayers' money and spend it to do this. It would cost so much less to do this if we would just do the right thing in the first place.
Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, this amendment cuts migration and refugee assistance funding from $2.5 billion to $0.
This money, the $2.5 billion, goes toward refugee programs around the world, including for shelter, healthcare, and sanitation.
Again, we all want to do what we can. We all want to help. Nobody is trying to be cruel or punitive here, but we don't have enough money to deal with the refugee crisis in our own country, which is self-imposed.
Our constituents here at home can't afford their own shelter, can't afford their own healthcare, their own food because of the policies of the administration, yet we are forcing them to pay for it around the globe, oftentimes with companies that have encouraged and inspired people to migrate to their countries and become refugees in their countries, and yet we are paying for that.
Furthermore, during the debate on the Homeland Security funding bill this week, many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle rightfully pointed out the disaster occurring at our southern border to the tune of thousands of people every single day coming in.
Oh, by the way, what other countries around the world are helping with our refugee crisis, with our refugee and migration assistance?
So our taxpayers are paying for the one that we are encouraging and allowing in our country, and they are being forced under penalty of law in their taxes to pay for the ones in other countries, too.
All of our districts have been affected by the influx of drugs, including fentanyl. In my district just in the last week, half a dozen people died from fentanyl that came across the southern border into my town thousands of miles away from the border.
One of the refrains of the Biden administration and border czar Harris seems to be that the only way to solve this is to address the root causes instead of simply enforcing our own border.
Mr. Chair, we are not going to solve any of this under the current policies that we are seeing, and we are certainly not going to solve it around the globe by forcing our taxpayers to pay for it, encouraging more of it all around the globe.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, like I said, every single one of us wants to help. Every single one of our hearts breaks for people who are forcibly displaced.
I would say, as well, that I question the numbers of forcibly displaced. There are people in this country saying that all the people coming illegally to this country are being forcibly displaced when that is obviously not true.
By the way, maybe we would be more amenable to taking the taxpayers' hard-earned money and spending it overseas on these migrations if we would solve our problems here in the United States of America. How can we force them, how can we ask them, to spend their hard-earned tax dollars overseas when we refuse to solve the problems right here at home and force them to pay for that, as well? It is insult upon injury.
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Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chair, I yield back the balance of my time.
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