Brian Jones: “I am on the floor again to talk about the waste of American taxpayers' money in Afghanistan. Just last week, we in the…”

“I am on the floor again to talk about the waste of American taxpayers' money in Afghanistan. Just last week, we in the House Armed Services Committee heard testimony from Deputy Secretary of Defense Robert Work, along with other DOD officials, regarding the Department's request for an additional $58.6 billion to be used overseas, primarily in Afghanistan. While speaking to Mr. Work, I mentioned the following three headlines, which, I believe, accurately describe the American situation in Afghanistan: the headline from CBS News, ``Is the Pentagon wasting taxpayer money in Afghanistan?''; from the Center for Public Integrity, ``The U.S. military was no match for Afghanistan's corruption''; then from the World Affairs Journal, ``Money Pit: The Monstrous Failure of U.S. Aid to Afghanistan.'' All of these reports detail a shocking misuse of the American taxpayers' dollar with little to no accountability. My question to Mr. Work was this: How can the Pentagon, in good conscience, request this money given the waste, fraud, and abuse that we continue to see with American resources in Afghanistan? Mr. Speaker, this is money that we could be using right here in America to care for our many wounded veterans, to rebuild our country, our schools, our roads, our infrastructure, and yet, every day, we continue to spend billions and billions overseas with, as I said earlier, just little accountability.…”