Quantcast
Published On: Fri, Apr 19th, 2013

Rand Paul questions John Kerry on foreign aid

During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing concerning the FY2014 International Affairs Budget, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) questioned Secretary of State John Kerry on foreign aid and the corrupt leaders that have received it.

Paul began with the statement that he’s used several times before, “You mention in your remarks that we don’t need politicians to go home and say that we need to end foreign aid and spend that money at home.

Sec. of State John Kerry Image/Video Screen Shot

Sec. of State John Kerry
Image/Video Screen Shot

“Well, this might come as news to one of the most prominent politicians in our country who said in his re-election campaign that we need to do less nation building abroad and more nation building at home, and that would be your current boss, the President of the United States. So I don’t think this is unique to Republicans or Democrats.

“In fact I think this crosses all party lines. It is not me going home and creating an atmosphere where people are doubtful of foreign aid. It’s that 80 to 90 percent are doubtful.”

He also went on to talk about the deteriorating condition of the infrastructure in the US and Kentucky in particular and the inability of the White House to keep the tours going, while Washington funnels hundreds of millions to places like Egypt.

“Many of us find that offensive”, Paul said.

Paul continued his opening statement by talking about the corrupt leaders that essentially got rich of US foreign aid like Mubarak and Mobutu.

He then asked Sec. Kerry to respond.

“Has some money been stolen? Absolutely. But by the largest measure possible today because of reforms that have been put in place, because of new accountability systems, because of the way aid is given now, because of something like the Millennium Challenge Corporation standards that are applied, investment and other kinds of things, the money, a lot of it doesn’t go to governments anymore directly. It goes into either the investment or into the project. It’s quite controlled. And that’s one of the reforms that has been put into place”, noted Kerry.

“But some of the riches of, you know, people who have ripped off their own governments have not necessarily have come from our aid. They’ve come from stealing the revenues of their oil, or selling the diamonds and the rubies that they have in their, you know, resource rich mines.”

Kerry later justified foreign aid as a ” one penny on the dollar” investment.

A huge supporter of foreign aid, Kerry continued, “I’ll give you an example: we have stopped countless plots against our country, which had the FBI had not cooperated, and if the CIA and other entities not been creating some of the programs we have, had we not worked with the justice systems, and had Interpol and the other things we worked with, we would’ve never done Americans would have died. And they would’ve been blown up.

“But for the discovery of the Christmas bomber or the other people, which came through these kinds of efforts, we made our country safer. So, I have to tell you, for the penny on the dollar, I’ll still make this argument anywhere even though, yes, occasionally something gets abused just as it gets abused in some parts of every government.”

 

 

 

On the DISPATCH: Headlines  Local  Opinion

Subscribe to Weekly Newsletter

* indicates required
/ ( mm / dd ) [ALL INFO CONFIDENTIAL]

About the Author

- Writer, Co-Founder and Executive Editor of The Global Dispatch. Robert has been covering news in the areas of health, world news and politics for a variety of online news sources. He is also the Editor-in-Chief of the website, Outbreak News Today and hosts the podcast, Outbreak News Interviews on iTunes, Stitcher and Spotify Robert is politically Independent and a born again Christian Follow @bactiman63

Displaying 2 Comments
Have Your Say
  1. Rand Paul calls out John Kerry on his pledge | Rand Paul in 2016 says:

    […] testimony during an April 18th Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State John Kerry made the following pledge when being questioned by Sen. Rand Paul […]

  2. Rand Paul calls out John Kerry on his pledge - The Global Dispatch says:

    […] testimony during an April 18th Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State John Kerry made the following pledge when being questioned by Sen. Rand Paul […]

Leave a comment

XHTML: You can use these html tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

like_us_on_facebook

 

The Global Dispatch Facebook page- click here

Movie News Facebook page - click here

Television News Facebook page - click here

Weird News Facebook page - click here 

DISPATCH RADIO

dispatch_radio

THE BRANDON JONES SHOW

brandon_jones_show-logo

Archives