Yesterday, the House passed H.R. 1567, the "Global Food Security Act." As I wrote earlier this week, H.R. 1567 "....requires the President to coordinate the development and implementation of a comprehensive strategy to accomplish the objectives of promoting global food security, resilience, and nutrition consistent with national food security investment plans."
It also authorized the federal government to spend one billion dollars on foreign aid programs, which is chump change in DC, but as Senator Everett Dirksen once said, "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money." This is on top of the billions the U.S. Government currently spends on overseas programs.
It is bad enough that House Leadership would put legislation like this on the suspension calendar, but even worse, they intended to ram this legislation through on a voice vote.
Fortunately, Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie caught wind of this scheme and was on the floor to demand a roll call vote. Thanks to Mr. Massie, we now know which members support spending more of your money (or increasing the debt owed by you and your children) on wasteful foreign aid programs, and which ones stand with the taxpayers and the American people.
That's the good news. The bad news is... only thirty-three representatives voted against this new foreign aid bill.
You can see the roll call vote here.
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PDFTags: Congress, thomas massie, Foreign Aid