Senator Webb's Interview with Rick Folbaum on Happening Now (Fox News)

Rick: Well, right now it's the country the U.S. owes the most money.   And now there are new calls to end using your tax dollars to provide development aid to China.  

Hundreds of millions of American dollars have helped the world's second biggest economy do things like expand internet service, transportation, [and] infrastructure.  Well, now our next guest says it's time to recognize that China can pay for those projects without our help.  

Senator Jim Webb is a Democrat   from Virginia; he sits on the Foreign Relations Committee where he is chairman of the East Asian and Pacific Affairs Subcommittee, also a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.  

It's a pleasure to talk to you, sir.  Thanks very much for being here.  

Senator Webb: Nice to be with you.  

Rick: It kind of sounds like making a charitable donation to the bank that holds your mortgage.  

Senator Webb: I think this is a situation where reality has overwhelmed what we have been doing in the   past.   There are two big questions, and we've looked at it in a number of different areas.   One is should American taxpayer dollars be put into China in order to help develop their economy?  And, the second is they really still an emerging economy, which affects a lot of other programs like World Bank programs, Asian development bank programs, [and] United Nations programs?  So we started looking at this, and I think it's time. 

Senator Inhofe, who is the ranking Republican on the Subcommittee, and I joined on a letter, basically saying, hey, in the crisis that we're in right now,  should we really be continuing to send American taxpayer dollars over to China for these purposes?  

Rick: And so what do your fellow lawmakers say to that?   The U.K. and Australia recently announced they're not giving anymore aid to China.  Why don't we do the same?  

Senator Webb:  I hope that this letter will get the right result in the appropriations process, and there are other areas.  My staff uncovered a situation a little more than a year ago with  a company called Millennium Challenge Corporation, which was designed to use American  taxpayer dollars to assist   infrastructure projects in the third world, particularly in Africa.  

We started looking at the contracts, and it was rather amazing that the number one recipient of these taxpayer dollars were Chinese state-owned corporations.   Three hundred and twenty million dollars worth of contracts had been let to Chinese state-owned corporations, in other words, Chinese government companies for development in Africa.  And, we all know how active China has been in its foreign policy in Africa anyway.  So you have the irony that American taxpayer dollars were  supposed to be used to assist  infrastructure projects in that  part of the world, but what they  were doing was assisting China  in terms of advancing its own  foreign policy in that part of the world.   We need to stop doing that.

Rick:  Senator, what about foreign aid, what about foreign aid in general?   We get a lot of e-mails from our viewers who want to know, you know, with our economy the way that it is, with our debt the way that it is, why are we dishing out so much money to foreign countries, a lot of whom have shown a lot of hostility toward the United States?  

What do you say to that?  

Senator Webb:  I think we can take a good, hard look at where we're giving foreign aid.  There are places where I think it benefits us in the terms of our security and, also, our ability to conduct commercial ventures.  

The Japanese traditionally have been very good at tying in their aid with the advancement of their commercial interests.  And I think we can do a lot more of that.  

Rick: Senator…thank you so much for your service to our country as a lawmaker, as a combat vet.   Thank you very much for your time.  

Senator Webb: Thank you.   Nice to be with you.