David Obey: “this amendment cuts $1,525,000 from the IMET account. The amount of the cut corresponds exactly to the amount requested…”

“this amendment cuts $1,525,000 from the IMET account. The amount of the cut corresponds exactly to the amount requested for the high-income countries of Austria, Finland, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Singapore, India, and Bahrain. The per capita gross domestic product for Finland is $16,140; for Austria the per capita income is $17,500; for Spain, $13,000; for Malta, $10,700; for Portugal, $10,000; for India, $1,300; for Singapore, $19,900; for Bahrain, $12,100; yet, this committee is insisting that we pay for the training costs for these countries. Mr. Chairman, I would point out there are countries in this bill who receive aid where the per capita income is less than $400 a year. It just seems to me strange indeed that countries like Austria and Singapore cannot afford to pay for the training which we provide. I am not saying we should not provide training to these countries, I am saying we ought to do it on a cash paid-for basis. I do not see why we ought to fund it. I would point out that a number of these countries spend a much smaller share of their gross domestic product on military expenditures than we do. I would point out a number of these countries are knocking our socks off on trade in a wide variety of sectors in the trading economy.”