‘No Tax Dollars for Terrorists Act’ Aims to End Foreign Aid to Taliban, Others

Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., has introduced legislation to prevent taxpayer dollars and foreign aid funding from going to terrorist groups. 

Walking up to a microphone outside the Capitol to speak about his bill, Burchett was accompanied by Republican Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Eli Crane of Arizona, and Ralph Norman of South Carolina. 

The group of firebrand conservatives called for an end to foreign aid ending up in the hands of terrorists, as they sang the praises of Burchett’s No Tax Dollars for Terrorists Act.

“You know, we’ve been talking about waste, fraud, and abuse lately in the media and DOGE committee,” Burchett said. “And I don’t think there’s any better example than funding terrorists. You can imagine that? You know, these dadgum people can hate us for free, folks.”

The Burchett team passed around dossiers contending that American foreign aid to Afghanistan consistently benefited the Taliban. 

The packet asserts that the Biden administration and the U.S. Agency for International Development spent “$60 [million] to teach Afghan women agriculture,” among other expenses that they argue ultimately benefited the Taliban regime.

One of Burchett’s most passionate supporters at the podium was Boebert, who criticized the previous administration’s foreign policy.

“House Republicans uncovered that [President Joe Biden’s Secretary of State Antony] Blinken used taxpayer dollars to send weekly cash payments … to the Afghanistan Central Bank,” Boebert said, adding:

One of the best ways to protect the American people from these terrorists is to stop the flow of money that is going to them. And unfortunately for the Taliban, there is a new sheriff in town—President [Donald] Trump.

Burchett’s bill, if enacted, would force the State Department to adopt a policy of restricting aid to the Taliban, as well as require reports on American funds being sent to Afghanistan.

Speaking to the press after his speech, Burchett said that he thinks American funds arrive to the Taliban through relief funds.

“[The money] is going, I believe, in the form of relief,” he said. “We have a hard time turning our backs on folks that are struggling. And that’s a good thing. But [the Taliban are] just taking it right off the top.”

Toward the end of the press conference, Boebert angrily responded to a journalist who challenged claims of payments to the Taliban.

“For anyone to defend any dollar that is going to a terrorist organization, shame on you. This is the mandate that President Trump got, that we are done sending our money for this. We don’t need ‘Sesame Street’ in Afghanistan to be funded by taxpayer dollars,” Boebert said, alluding to USAID funds that went to Iraq to fund an Iraqi version of “Sesame Street.”