Top US lawmaker: Aid recipients face sacrifices

Editor’s Note: Colonies of the American empire must do what they’re told or lose U.S. taxpayer charity.

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Countries that get US aid, such as Pakistan, will have to shoulder more of the burden for their own growth as Washington eyes deep cuts in overseas assistance, a top US lawmaker warned Wednesday.

“Greater sacrifice by aid recipients is required to sustain the generosity of the American people,” said Representative Nita Lowey, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Subcommittee that manages US aid flows.

“For example, Pakistan, which receives $1.5 billion per year in civilian aid alone, has one of the lowest effective tax rates in the world,” Lowey said in an opinion column in the online politics and public affairs magazine Politico.

“Fewer than 3 million of the 175 million Pakistanis pay any taxes, and tax evasion is particularly high among the wealthy, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,” said Lowey.

Her message echoed US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s call in September 2010 for the US ally to increase taxes on its wealthiest earners.

“It’s one of my pet peeves: Countries that will not tax their elite, who expect us to come in and help them serve their people, are just not going to get the kind of help from us that historically they may have,” said Clinton.

“Because one of the things that is now happening in Pakistan, and I said this when I was there last year, you cannot have a tax rate of nine percent of GDP (gross domestic product),” she said.

Clinton said Pakistan’s elites pay so little in taxes “it’s laughable” when the country has “such a rate of poverty and everybody is looking to the United States and other donors to come in and help.”
© AFP