By Laurence M. Vance
The Department of Justice (DOJ) has accused Senator Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and his wife of “accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for the senator, with help from his wife, using his position from 2018 to 2022 to benefit the Egyptian government, including on foreign military financing and foreign military sales.”
All in a day’s work for a member of Congress.
Menendez was the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, until he was pressured to resign from the committee. He is accused of “providing Egyptian officials sensitive information about U.S. embassy employees in Cairo; ghost-writing a letter for Egyptian officials to U.S. senators, asking them to support the release of $300 million in aid; and approving or removing holds on foreign military financing and exports of defense equipment to Egypt.”
Turns out that “Democratic and Republican leaders of the Senate and House foreign affairs panels have the option to place holds on large foreign weapons sales and the transfer of Foreign Military Financing funds, which are grants the State Department provides to foreign governments to buy U.S. weapons.”
The real problem here is the foreign aid itself, not the shenanigans of Senator Menendez.
In 2022, the fiscal 2022 appropriations deal made $320 million in foreign aid to Egypt contingent upon Cairo meeting certain human rights benchmarks. However, it also allowed the Biden administration to use a waiver for up to $235 million. In the end, only $85 million in aid was withheld.
Senator Ben Cardin (D-MD), the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says “he supports blocking $235m in military aid to Egypt over human rights concerns.” However, the largest chunk of aid, $980m, “was not subject to such restrictions and will go ahead.”
This means that Egypt was slated to receive over $1 billion from U.S. taxpayers. At least that is lower than the $1.568 billion that was taken from U.S. taxpayers and given to Egypt in fiscal year 2015 or the $2.347 billion that was taken and given in fiscal year 2002.
How many Americans realize that their government gives over a billion dollars of their tax money to Egypt every year? And, of course, it is not just Egypt. The United States also gives other countries billions of dollars in foreign aid every year. According to ForeignAssistance.gov—“the U.S. government’s flagship website for making U.S. foreign assistance data available to the public”—the foreign aid budget request for fiscal year 2023 was $53 billion for a total of 178 countries.
How many Americans would willingly give their resources to the governments or people of other countries unless there were some natural disaster or humanitarian crisis in some impoverished country? I say very few. If the federal government sent out its agents to go door-to-door, bucket in hand, requesting that Americans make a donation to country x, how much money would they collect? I think the answer is obvious. If the government of country x sent a letter to every American household appealing for funds, how many Americans would get out their wallet, checkbook, or credit card? I suspect that the letter would be treated as junk mail. It’s not that Americans aren’t a generous people. Americans are extremely generous, but they don’t want to throw their money down a rathole.
All foreign aid spending should be blocked with no contingencies. Every member of Congress in favor of foreign-aid spending should have to answer to the American people why he supports taking money from them and giving it away to foreigners and their governments when many Americans live paycheck to paycheck and have a hard time paying their rent on time.
Not one dime from the U.S. treasury should be given or loaned to any government, NGO, or individual in any other country. Any American who wants to help another country with disaster relief, economic development, or defense should reach into his own pocket. All foreign aid should be individual, private, and voluntary.
Laurence M. Vance writes from central Florida. He is the author of The War on Drugs Is a War on Freedom; War, Christianity, and the State: Essays on the Follies of Christian Militarism; War, Empire, and the Military: Essays on the Follies of War and U.S. Foreign Policy; King James, His Bible, and Its Translators, and many other books. His newest books are Free Trade or Protectionism? and The Free Society.
