Washington, DC: Congressman Ron Paul led the fight in Congress yesterday to reduce pork-barrel spending in a foreign operations bill, successfully defeating a huge foreign aid giveaway to China. An amendment cosponsored by Paul will prevent the Export-Import bank, which loans money to foreign governments, from loaning any funds to China for building nuclear plants.

“The Export-Import Bank is nothing but a taxpayer-subsidized boondoggle for large, politically powerful American corporations,” Paul stated. “Americans should not be sending their taxes overseas to benefit special interests, especially when those dollars end up building nuclear power plants in China. Congress has no business loaning the Chinese government or Chinese companies money in the first place.”

Paul also supported an unsuccessful amendment to reduce the amount of money– currently a whopping $735 annually– American taxpayers send to Colombia.

“Congress hardly should be sending $735 million to Colombia when we have a $600 billion single-year deficit here at home,” Paul stated. “Our meddling in Colombia not only is unconstitutional, it’s absolutely useless. Drug production in Colombia is growing each year. It’s simply not the job of American taxpayers to police Colombia, and Congress displays incredible arrogance when it funds overseas pork. I’ve never had a constituent ask me to send more of their tax dollars to China, Colombia, or any other foreign country. Congress needs to address the deficit at home and stop wasting money on pet projects overseas.”

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