Time for a Paradigm Shift in America's Foregn Policy
Floor Speech
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Mr. PERRY. Madam Speaker, many people that each of us meet as Representatives in our home district say that things are wrong with Washington, and they give us a list.
Of course, one of the big things is the misspending of their money, and they are right. They say: Why aren't you doing something about it?
Oftentimes, the answer is: look, it is complicated, we have a House of Representatives, we have a Senate, and we don't always agree, and then we have to get the President to sign something.
On this occasion, something can be done; it is just not being done. In April 2011, the Palestinian Authority registry published a government resolution granting all Palestinian prisoners imprisoned in Israel for security and terror-related offenses a monthly salary from the authority--a monthly salary, like a job.
Imagine if your job was to blow up people, tear their limbs off, and send hot pieces of metal through their bodies and watch their bloody corpses being dragged through the street.
If that was your job, you would get a salary for that. Who in America pays--we put people in prison for that, we put people to death for that; yet American taxpayers are paying people overseas to do just that. Words mean things. They pay a salary.
The Authority defined eligible beneficiaries as anyone imprisoned in Israel's prison as a result of his participation in the struggle against the occupation, as is already stated, the occupation; again, words mean things.
I wonder, people complain, and they call it an occupation of the Palestinian lands. Let's remember who attacked Israel. I wonder if the war had ended inside of Israel's borders, if the attackers would have given Israel's borders back. I wonder, but I doubt they would have. Words mean things. So if you are involved at all in this struggle, in this fight, in this killing, you get a salary.
Now, according to the Palestinian Authority's definition, as was already stated, more than 4,500 Palestinian prisoners, as of December 2012, serving time for terror-related offenses are recipients of these salaries.
This means that Palestinians convicted of crimes such as theft do not receive a salary. However, Hamas and Fatah prisoners receive hefty payments--hefty.
According to the regulation and economic reports on government salaries, the monthly salaries to these prisoners range from $680 to $3,400 a month. Who couldn't use $3,400, especially at tax time? Yet we are sending it to people to kill people, literally.
Like many salaries, payments to prisoners follow a sliding scale based on quality--quality of work. If your work is murdering other people, as Mr. Weber from Texas already stated, the more murder, the more mayhem, the higher the salary. It is unfathomable to us as Americans.
This is happening, and there is a few of us on the floor, but where is the rest of the Federal Government, Madam Speaker? Where is the Senate? Where is our President? Where is the Secretary of State? He knows this is happening, but it is us folks on the floor that are talking about it. He is not saying a word.
In this world, the more heinous the act of terrorism, the greater the salary; the more violent the terrorist act, the longer the Israeli prison sentence and, in turn, the higher the monthly compensation--compensation for killing, so we are hiring hit men. American tax dollars are hiring hit men and hit women, and the policy literally incentivizes terrorism.
In May of 2009, GAO issued a report on this very subject, the Government Accountability Office. This is not Perry's rules; it is not Yoho's statistics. It is the GAO.
The report explained:
The U.S. Government is one of the largest donors to the Palestinians.
One of the largest donors. Yet the GAO found incomplete compliance with even the minimal paperwork requirements for vetting procedures.
So we are giving them a pile of money, and as usual with the Federal Government, we are not checking up on them. We have no idea what they are spending it on. Well, we just found out, right? We just found out.
In many cases, it seems Federal agencies and offices merely went through the motions without proper vetting--so surprising. It is shocking to me that U.S. taxpayer dollars have been indirectly used to pay Palestinian terrorists' salaries.
Let me explain the indirectly part of it because it amounts to this year--this fiscal year--$440 million. $17 trillion in debt. Annual deficits for the last 5-6 years averaging about a trillion dollars; yet we are happy to hand away $440 million and some of which--a great deal of which is used to kill people.
So the Congress allocates that money to the Department of State. The Department of State then allocates a portion of that money to USAID, who then gives it to the Palestinian Authority general budget, which is extremely fungible, which means the first dollar or the last dollar--the dollars don't care--of the $440 million, we are spending about $60 million--well, someone is--the Palestinian Authority's paying $60 million to these terrorists in salaries. $60 million of that $440 million is going to terrorists' salaries.
Now, I wonder how much we spent tracking down Nidal Hassan and convicting him. How much time did we spend? What about those victims? How much time, energy, and resources did we spend on the Tsarnaev brothers?
Terrorism, people that kill other people, yet while we spend American tax dollars to track them down, imprison them--in the case of Nidal Hassan, his rightful punishment, which is the death sentence--on this occasion, we actually pay people to kill our allies and even other Americans.
State and Federal Government sanction other nations for this kind of behavior. We sanction them. We say we are not going to give you things, we are going restrict you; yet on this occasion, the Palestinian Authority, we actually pay them.
I don't get it. As an American, I don't get it. I wonder too, in this time of executive orders, this is wholly within the purview of the executive branch.
There have been many times when people in this House have objected to the executive orders moved on by this administration, but on this occasion, I can't think of one person in this room that would say: oh, no, Mr. President, please don't stop the State Department from giving $440 million to the Palestinian Authority, so they can spend $60 million of hard-earned taxpayer money to pay for criminals that kill people.
Yet crickets, Madam Speaker, crickets.
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Mr. PERRY. So based on this, how should our great ally Israel--how should the people of Israel view us, knowing that this is happening and knowing that no one outside these four walls right now is talking about this? How should they view us?
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