National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 2027

Floor Speech

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Mr. MASSIE. Madam Chair, my amendment is simple. It strikes $3.3 billion of foreign aid to the country of Israel from the State Department funding bill.

We have $39.4 trillion of debt. We have needs at home, which include our infrastructure, our roads and bridges. We have a shortfall in this fund. We have our locks and dams, and we are perpetually trying to figure out new funding mechanisms to come up with. We have homeless veterans. We are sending more money to Israel in this bill than we spend on homeless veterans in this country.

Just to put it in perspective, there are 3,000 counties in this country, and if we divide that into $3 billion, that is $1 million from every county. This is not an insignificant amount of money that is going overseas.

I think we should stop it. We should put them on a diet. They are the biggest welfare recipient of the United States and have been for many years.

Madam Chair, $310 billion has been received by Israel from the taxpayers of the United States. That is in inflation-adjusted dollars since we have been giving them money. That is why I think this amendment is important.

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Mr. MASSIE. Madam Chair, I heard a common refrain in my colleague's arguments there that, oh, don't worry, all this money is going to the military industrial complex.

I have a problem with that. It is not a sustainable economy--buying weapons and letting people use them overseas on other people, oftentimes innocent civilians. I am not compelled by the argument that our job is to be here and enrich the military-industrial complex, now called the defense industrial base.

Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Castro).

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Mr. MASSIE. Madam Chair, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Castro), my friend and colleague.

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Mr. MASSIE. Madam Chair, may I inquire as to how much time I have remaining.
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Mr. MASSIE. Madam Chair, I yield myself the balance of my time to close.

Madam Chair, Israel has the strongest economy in the Middle East. Their debt per GDP is in much better shape than ours. They don't need our money. In fact, they have claimed recently they want to get off of the welfare. I am concerned that the other funding mechanisms they are talking about, or comingling, our technology and supply chains, we will have even less transparency than what is going on here today, so I am opposed to that as well.

I am opposed to all foreign aid. I didn't pick on Israel here. I offered an amendment to defund Egypt and also to defunding aid to Jordan, which we will talk about in a little bit. I am particularly concerned this year about the foreign aid to Israel. There have been 70,000 casualties in Gaza, and I don't think we should be a part of that. American taxpayers should not be conscripted into funding the military adventures of Israel.

Madam Chair, I urge adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. MASSIE. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.
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Mr. MASSIE. Madam Chair, I offer this amendment sincerely for the American people because the price of housing, the price of fuel, the price of everything is going up because our government, frankly, is spending too much money.

We are borrowing money. We are printing money, and why are we doing this? Are we doing this to support our own infrastructure or our own veterans? No. A lot of this money goes overseas, and one of the recipients is the country of Jordan.

I think we should end foreign aid to Jordan. As our debt approaches $40 trillion, it is more and more urgent.

I have noticed that the money that we sent to Jordan has tripled since 2008. It started out at about $600 million, and now it is $2.1 billion. This is too much. We shouldn't be doing it. Jordan is a monarchy. They do not deserve the support of our democratic Republic of this country. I think we should end the support to their country from our taxpayers.

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Mr. MASSIE. Madam Chair, this is a very simple amendment. I will just say it again. The monarchy of Jordan doesn't deserve the taxpayers' money from the United States.

In 2021, King Abdullah II secretly purchased over $106 million in luxury properties in Malibu, London, and D.C. through 36 offshore shell companies while 16 percent of the Jordanian population lives in poverty.

It has been said that foreign aid can be described as taking money from poor people in the United States and giving it to rich people in other countries, and that is what is happening in this instance.

How much of this money is going to go toward more luxury properties for the King of Jordan? I would like to know that.

There needs to be more transparency in this money and, frankly, it needs to end completely.

We don't have the money. We are in debt. It is contributing to the high cost of living here in the United States. We would be better off spending this money taking care of our own veterans.

Madam Chair, I urge adoption of my amendment, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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Mr. MASSIE. Madam Chair, I demand a recorded vote.

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