Sen. Rand Paul: Cut Off Egypt Aid

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a staunch opponent of foreign aid, says he specifically wants the U.S. to cut off all financial aid to Egypt.  Paul, in a letter to President Obama, stated that Egypt has issued arrest warrants against American citizens there, and until the warrants are rescinded, aid should be cut off.  Paul wrote:

On March 15, I wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging your Administration to delay release of U.S. aid to Egypt. In that letter, I noted that while the Egyptian government had released the pro-democracy American workers who had been held captive for weeks in Egypt, they had not abandoned the prosecution. In fact, they had demanded signed statements saying our citizens would return for the trial. I also warned that the Egyptian government had not proved either its stability or its commitment to freedom and democracy. It had clearly not yet met the criteria set forth by Congress that would allow the aid to be distributed.  It literally took the threat of losing that aid to get our citizens released in the first place. Why would we then foolishly believe the Egyptians would suddenly behave better after the Administration released billions in aid to its coffers?

Paul earlier attempted cutting off aid to Egypt by attaching an amendment to a Postal Service reform bill, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid blocked it procedurally.  

While Paul and other Republicans work to cut off aid to terrorist regimes – including the Hamas regime in Gaza – Democrats, both in Congress and in the Obama administration, continue to ram through funding.