Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. PAUL. Madam President, dependency often leads to indolence, lethargy, a sense of entitlement, and ultimately to a state of insolence. Egypt has been receiving welfare from the United States for nearly 40 years. America has lavished $60 billion on Egypt. They react with insolence and disregard by detaining 19 of our U.S. citizens. For several months now these citizens have been essentially held hostage, unable to leave Egypt. They are held on the pretense of trumped-up political charges, held in order to display them in show trials to placate the mob.

The United States can respond in one of two ways: We can hang our head low; we can take the tack of Jimmy Carter; we can try to placate Egypt with concessions and offer them bribes in the form of more government aid; or America can respond with strength.

Today the President should call the Egyptian Ambassador in and send him home with a message, a message that America will not tolerate any country holding U.S. citizens as political prisoners. Congress should act today to tell Egypt that we will no longer send our annual welfare check to them; that this year's $1.8 billion is not on the way. America could put Egyptian travelers on notice that the welcome sign in America will temporarily expire unless the Egyptian Government lets our people go; or America could hang her head, promise to continue the foreign aid to Egypt, and apologize for supporting democracy. Which will it be?

So far, the signal sent to Egypt from the President and from the Senate has been weak or counterproductive. In late January the President's Under Secretary of State said to the administration that he wanted to provide more immediate benefits to Egypt; let's speed up the welfare checks. The President's budget this week still continues to include $1.8 billion for Egypt without a single word of rebuke or any demand that our U.S. citizens be released. The President went one step further when he actually increased foreign aid to the Middle East in his budget, and now the Senate refuses to hold a single vote to spend 10 minutes discussing why U.S. citizens are being detained in Egypt.

One might excuse the Egyptians for not believing we will cut their aid. You cannot lead from behind. Senate leadership appears unwilling to address this issue head-on, so the Senate won't act to help our citizens this week.

I hope that when Senators return home and talk to their constituents in their States, their constituents will ask these questions: Senator, why do you continue to send our taxpayer money to Egypt? Why do you continue to send our money to Egypt when they detain our citizens? Senator, why do you continue to send billions of dollars to Egypt when 12 million Americans are out of work? Senator, why do you continue to send welfare to foreign countries when our bridges are falling down and in desperate need of repair? Senator, how can you continue to flush our taxpayer money down a foreign drain when we are borrowing $40,000 a second? The money we send to Egypt we must first borrow from China. That is insanity, and it must end. Finally, Mr. Senator, I hope your constituents ask you this when you go home: When working families are suffering under rising food prices, when working families are suffering because gas prices have doubled, how can you justify sending our hard-earned taxpayer dollars to Egypt, to countries that openly show their disdain for us?

When will we learn? You can't buy friendship, and you can't convince authoritarians to love freedom with welfare checks.

America needs to send a clear and unequivocal message to Egypt that we will not tolerate the detention of U.S. citizens on trumped-up political charges or otherwise and that we will not continue to send welfare checks to Egypt, to a country that commits an injustice to American citizens.

I ask unanimous consent today to set aside the pending amendment and call up my amendment on Egypt that would end all foreign aid to Egypt if our U.S. citizens are not released within 30 days. I think this is an important amendment which deserves discussion, and Egypt deserves to hear a message from the Senate that we will not tolerate this.

I ask unanimous consent to bring up amendment No. 1541.

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