Let’s face it. The omnibus bill sucks and proves once against the Republican Party is not the party of fiscal responsibility and small government.
But they did include the Taylor Force Act, named after the American vet killed two years ago, which will stop payments to the Palestinian Authority until it stops rewarding terrorists for killing Jews and Americans.
Officials named the act after American veteran and Vanderbilt student Taylor Force, who lost his life in Tel Aviv after a Palestinian terrorist stabbed him to death on March 8, 2016. It happened while Vice President Joe Biden visited Israel.
The attack became part of what we now call the “Knife Intifada,” a description of the numerous knife attacks the Palestinian terrorists use against Jews and Americans.
Well, the PA rewards those that engage in these terrorist attacks. The payments are known as “pay to slay.” The Times of Israel published a report that detailed how PA payments to these terrorists “now equal half its foreign budgetary aid.”
The PA Finance Ministry’s 2017 budget towards the terrorists “will amount to NIS 552 million ($153.4 million).” That is 13% more than the 2016 budget.
The budget also puts aside $190,869,166 for the families of the terrorists. In 2016, the PA only set aside $174,630,296 for the families.
All in all, including prisoners and ex-prisoners, the total comes to $344,313,451. That is “equal to 49.6 percent of the funds Ramallah expects donors to contribute to its budget over the year.”
That’s unacceptable. From The Jerusalem Post:
The law would dramatically halt US financial assistance to the PA absent reform, while retaining aid allotted to security cooperation and some humanitarian relief. After negotiating some wiggle room into the bill, granting the PA time to phase out the program, Democrats wholeheartedly endorsed the GOP-drafted legislation.The legislation passed the House of Representatives in December with bipartisan support.“After over two years of very hard work, we are on the verge of having the Taylor Force Act become law,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina, who authored and introduced the legislation. “This is one of the most significant pieces of legislation I’ve been involved with. The powerful message from the Force family, along with effort from the pro-Israel community led by Sander Gerber, have made this possible.”
I don’t generally like bipartisan legislation because usually when that happens we get big government and more spending, but this is something I can get behind.
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