ARON HELLER | AP ARABNEWS
Tuesday 8 January 2013
.JERUSALEM: US Sen. Rand Paul on Monday called for a gradual reduction of American foreign aid, delivering the message in an unlikely venue — since Israel is among the top recipients of American assistance.
Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, told reporters that the US can’t afford to keep borrowing money and then handing it out to others, even to allies like Israel.
“It will harder to be a friend of Israel if we are out of money. It will be harder to defend Israel if we destroy our country in the process,” he told the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies, an Israeli think tank. “I think there will be significant repercussions to running massive deficits … you destroy your currency by spending money you don’t have.”
Paul, a longtime opponent of foreign aid, acknowledged he was expressing a “minority opinion” and doubted Congress would end foreign aid in his lifetime. “It’s unlikely anything changes, but I think it is worth discussing,” he said during his first trip to Israel.
Israel gets about $3 billion a year in military aid from the US
http://arabnews.com/us-senator-calls-gradual-cut-aid-israel-0