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“HUMAN RIGHTS IN PAKISTAN AND SINDH” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H8023-H8026 on Oct. 12, 2017.
The State Department is responsibly for international relations with a budget of more than $50 billion. Tenure at the State Dept. is increasingly tenuous and it's seen as an extension of the President's will, ambitions and flaws.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
HUMAN RIGHTS IN PAKISTAN AND SINDH
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Arrington). Under the Speaker's announced policy of January 3, 2017, the Chair recognizes the gentleman from California (Mr. Sherman) for 30 minutes.
Mr. SHERMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank you for yielding me 30 minutes, more than enough time to deliver three separate speeches that I have prepared for presentation. The first two are informed, or two of these speeches are informed. The first and the third are informed by my 20 years of experience on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and the second speech I will deliver is informed by 40 years as a CPA in the world of taxation.
Mr. Speaker, I am the ranking member on the Asia and the Pacific Subcommittee and the founder of the Sindh Caucus. In those two roles, I have focused on human rights and the rule of law in Pakistan, and particularly in its perhaps largest province, Sindh, comprising most of southern Pakistan.
We have dedicated ourselves in the Sindh Caucus to efforts to preserve the culture and the language of the Sindhi people, and particularly their dedication to religious tolerance. Unfortunately, the human rights picture in Pakistan and in Sindh are not good.
I would like to say a few words about the disappearance of Punhal Sario, the leader of the Voice for Missing Persons of Sindh movement, and about the very serious problem of disappearances in Sindh in southern Pakistan.
Just this past summer, Punhal Sario led a march between Sindh's two major cities, Hyderabad to Karachi, demanding accountability for Sindhi activists who have been abducted by Pakistani security forces or simply disappeared.
Where is Punhal now? It appears that he, too, has fallen victim to the very serious forces that he marched against.
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Punhal's case is hardly an isolated one. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan reported that over 700 people disappeared, were kidnapped, and never heard of again in Pakistan in the year 2016 alone.
In the past year, the United Nations Human Rights Committee, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the State Department's own Report on Human Rights have all noted serious concerns about extrajudicial and targeted killings and disappearances in Pakistan and, particularly, in Sindh.
Elements of the government or military see an opportunity to simply make their opponents disappear. Here are a few particulars. In 2016, Amnesty International reported that the Pakistani security forces had, and these are their words, ``committed human rights violations with almost total impunity.''
While Human Rights Watch observed that, ``law enforcement and security agencies remained unaccountable for human rights violations.''
The State Department itself noted in Pakistan, ``the most serious human rights problems were extrajudicial and targeted killings disappearances, torture, the lack of the rule of law.''
Two years ago, in 2015, Sindhi leader Dr. Anwar Laghari was brutally murdered in Pakistan. Days before his death, he had sent a memorandum to President Barack Obama about human rights violations by the Pakistani military and its ISI, the Inter-Services Intelligence, agency, an important part of the Pakistani military.
I attended a memorial service for Dr. Laghari here in Washington and have come to know of his work for human rights for the Sindhi people of southern Pakistan. The Pakistani Government has not been responsive to numerous inquiries into the reason for Dr. Laghari's death and for why his perpetrators have not been brought to justice.
Two months ago, on August 18, I sent a letter to the Acting Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs and the U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan expressing strong concerns about human rights violations of the Pakistani Government in Sindh. Six of my House colleagues--three Democrats and three Republicans--joined me in that effort.
There are other human rights concerns in Pakistan that I should also bring to the attention of this House. The people of Sindh face religious extremist attacks. ISIS, for example, claimed responsibility for an attack on a Sufi shrine in Sindh that killed 80 people. Yet the government has not acted to protect religious minorities and, in general, has not acted to protect the people of Sindh from Islamic extremism.
In addition, in Sindh, there are forced conversions of Sindhi girls belonging to minority communities. While the numbers are unclear, reports suggest that every year perhaps 1,000 girls and young women in Pakistan, including many in Sindh, are forcibly converted upon a marriage, not of their choice, to Muslim men. The Pakistani Government has not done enough to stop this practice, and reform measures have been circumvented and not enforced.
Human rights abuses of this type cannot go unanswered. Activists disappear under suspicious circumstances. It is our obligation to speak out and demand accountability. These disappearances and other violations of human rights should be a major topic of conversation in all bilateral discussions between our government and the government in Islamabad.
Tax Proposal Deletes Deductions
Mr. SHERMAN. Now, Mr. Speaker I would like to move on to a second speech, one dealing with the tax proposal of the Trump administration.
The provisions I would like to focus on chiefly are those involving taking away the deductions, the itemized deductions that so many Americans take to reduce their tax liability.
Now, these deductions are eliminated on the theory that, oh, they just go to the wealthy, and, for those purposes, they define the wealthy as the wealthiest 30 percent or so of the American people--say a family with an income of $100,000 or $150,000. We are told that is the same thing as increasing taxes on the top one-tenth of 1 percent, say a family with an income of $1 million or $2 million a year.
There is a difference in the ability to pay of those two typical families, typifying their income brackets. The fact is, that taxing hardworking families with incomes of $100,000 or $150,000, in order to provide reduced tax rates for those with incomes of $1 million or $2 million, makes our tax system more regressive. You cannot put the entire top 30 percent in one category for these income calculations.
That is why, and that is only one reason why, I oppose the elimination of the home mortgage deduction. Another reason that I oppose it is elimination of the home mortgage deduction and reduction for local property taxes will probably decrease the value of homes by 20 percent, is the best estimate I have seen.
Well, if you lose 20 percent of the value of your home, you may very well lose all of the equity in your home. How is that going to affect the economy? How is that going to affect the ability of homeowners to go and spend money in their communities and support the economy of their communities?
What does it do to the Federal budget when we are responsible through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for underwriting home mortgages? We know that if you wipe out the equity of many homeowners in their homes, this can lead to defaults and cost the Federal Government perhaps more than we give up by having a home mortgage deduction.
Another element to keep in mind is that the entire idea of an income tax is that we tax people based on their ability to pay. If you are in a State with high income taxes, high property taxes, that diminishes your ability to pay. If you make a certain salary and money is taken out by your State government before you ever see it, your ability to pay is only on that net paycheck.
It is simply wrong to take away the deduction for State and local taxes. But make no mistake about it, the purpose of removing that deduction is not just to hurt the top 30, or 40 percent, or 50 percent of the American people who itemize their deductions, it is designed to punish those who are dependent on State and local government.
All the conservative theorists say: If we can just eliminate the deduction for State and local taxes, we will cut the size of State and local governments. We will create a political atmosphere in which they slash money for local schools, slash money for local health programs for the poor, slash money for police.
Who will be hurt from those cuts? Not just the top 30 percent or 50 percent, but everyone in America, most particularly, the poor.
Finally, I want to focus on the medical deduction. They take away the medical deduction in this program, this proposal of the Trump administration. Now, keep in mind that we already have severe limits on deducting medical expenses. You can deduct medical expenses only if they exceed 10 percent of your family's income. So medical expenses are itemized and deducted only by those families including someone with very significant health costs.
Now, we have worked hard in this House to make sure that people have health insurance. But even with health insurance, there are copays; there are deductibles. These can be absorbed in a family budget where no one has a particular strong medical need. But what if there is some member of the family who needs experimental treatments that are not covered, therapies that are not covered?
Under the present system, at least they get to deduct these extraordinary--not the first 10 percent of AGI, of adjusted gross income--but when they start spending out-of-pocket costs in excess of 10 percent income, they can take a tax deduction--a tax deduction taken away in the Trump tax proposal.
I speak not just as someone who spent a lot of time as a tax expert who headed the second largest tax agency in the country, but as the father of a child with special needs. What does this tax proposal mean for such a family? Well, first, there is a cut in Federal revenue under this proposal of between $150 billion and $200 billion a year. Deficit hawks will demand that these revenue cuts be matched by cuts to Federal spending.
What does that do to the $13 billion the Federal Government dedicates to the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA, also known as special education? And what do these cuts in our Federal expenditures mean to the $293 million that are spent by the National Institutes of Health on research designed to prevent and treat autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, ADHD?
So the first impact on a family with special needs is a slashing of the money the Federal Government spends for special education and medical research. But second, I talked about those out-of-pocket medical expenses. Parents with special-needs children know that health insurance pays only a portion of what is needed, or perhaps none of what is needed, for behavioral therapy, speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, developmental pediatricians, neuropsychological services, et cetera.
Medical insurance will pay nothing toward anything branded an experimental treatment, and, of course, medical insurance does not cover special schools required to meet the needs of some special-needs children.
Under current law, a special school designed to meet those with a physical or mental handicap are considered medical expenses. All of these tax deductions are taken away from a family whose ability to pay is diminished by the costs of providing these therapies to a special-
needs child.
In addition, right now, the tax law provides a personal exemption of
$4,050 for each dependent child. The Trump administration proposal takes that away. It does say, in some vague language, that there will be a child tax credit to compensate parents who are losing the personal exemption. But this credit will be limited to children 16 years of age and younger.
So what about parents supporting children in their teenage years, and older? Remember, some special-needs children will need parental support for a lifetime. Those parents lose the exemption and are ineligible for this credit available only to parents of younger children.
But perhaps parents of children with special needs should support the Trump tax program. While it will tremendously increase their taxes, while it will cut Federal expenditures on special education and on health research and medical research, parents of children with special needs can take solace in knowing that this plan will reduce taxes for the Trump family by over $1 billion in estate taxes and by tens of millions of dollars in income tax.
Perhaps we should tell parents of special-needs children that they should stop worrying so much about their children and start worrying about Donald Trump's children. If they did, they would support the Trump tax proposal.
Iran Nuclear Control Deal
Mr. SHERMAN. Finally, Mr. Speaker, I would like to address the issue of Iran and the nuclear deal, nuclear control deal that we signed with Iran.
First, a little background. In 1997, I said at the Foreign Affairs Committee that Iran and its nuclear program were the number one threat to American national security.
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For the last 20 years, I have supported every effort to impose sanctions on the Iranian regime. When the Iran nuclear deal was finalized and published, I was the first of either party to come to this floor and say that Congress should not vote to endorse that deal.
But the question before us now is: Should we renounce the deal?
Now, it would be one thing if Iran decides that we are so tough on them on other issues that they choose to renounce the deal, but that is not the issue before us today. The issue before us today is whether America should renounce the deal, and the resounding and clear answer is that is not something we should do at this time.
Now, I will give you an example. Let's say you bought a flawed automobile. In some jurisdictions, you take back the automobile and you get back your money. But what opponents--what some are proposing now is that we renounce the deal. Imagine you are in a jurisdiction where you have to take back the car and the dealer keeps your money, too. Taking back the car doesn't look like such a good idea anymore.
Now, like a flawed automobile, the Iran nuclear deal is liable to not be working next decade. But that doesn't mean you take back the car and the dealer keeps the money.
What happens if we renounce the deal?
Iran keeps the money. We unfroze very roughly $100 billion of their money. If we renounce the deal, they keep the money. We delivered over
$1 billion in currency on big pallets. If we renounce the deal, Iran keeps the money. If we renounce the deal, Iran is liberated from all of the restrictions that it agreed to on its nuclear program.
I opposed the deal because the restrictions on Iran's nuclear program in the deal were temporary. I believe we need to extend and enforce those limitations on their nuclear program. If you listen to the Prime Minister of Israel, Bibi Netanyahu, he has identified the fact that we have not been able to extend and make permanent the limitations on Iran's nuclear program as the chief flaw in the deal and the chief thing to correct to turn it into a better deal.
But if we renounce the deal, we don't extend and enforce the limitations on Iran's nuclear program, we end and eliminate immediately the restrictions on Iran's nuclear program. I cannot think of a worse result.
Now, there are two mechanisms that we could use as a nation to renounce the deal, give Iran all the benefits, and liberate them from all their obligations. The first of these is on our mind now because it could be triggered on October 15. That is the day on which the President could, in effect, decertify this deal under the Iran Nuclear Review Act. I hope that, if he does that, the press will not overplay it, because a decertification does nothing more than focus Congress' attention on whether we want to reinstitute the exact sanctions that were waived as part of the nuclear deal. A decertification does nothing more than focus our attention and, over in the Senate, provide for a reinstitution of the old sanctions.
Now, I don't think that Congress would be stupid enough to do that because, as I have explained, if we renounce the deal, Iran keeps the benefits and is liberated from its obligations.
But the President should not decertify the deal and focus the world's attention on whether America will stand with the deal at this time.
The second way that America could renounce the deal will occur next January because the basic element of the deal--the basic thing Iran got from the United States--was an agreement that the President would, every 4 months to 6 months, it depends on the exact statute, waive particular identified sanctions. As it happens, the existing waivers all expire in the middle of next January. If the President were to fail to issue those waivers, that would be an American renunciation of the deal. So it does not meet our national security objectives to renounce the deal.
What meets our national security objectives is to impose tough sanctions on Iran, draft those sanctions carefully, and explain them to the world not as a renunciation of the deal, but as appropriate sanctions given Iran's non-nuclear, outside-the-deal, wrongful behavior.
Now, the question is: Can we have sanctions on Iran and continue to force them to abide by the deal?
The answer is clearly yes.
In July of 2015, Secretary Kerry came before our committee, and I raised this very issue: If we adopt the deal, can we impose sanctions on the Central Bank of Iran to deter terrorism? Or would that violate this agreement?
I specifically asked: Are Congress and the United States free under the agreement to adopt new sanctions legislation that will remain in force as long as Iran holds American hostages or supports the murderous Assad regime?
Secretary Kerry's answers were clear. He stated: We are free to adopt additional sanctions as long as they are not a phony excuse for just taking the whole pot of past ones and putting them back.
So we can and should impose new sanctions on Iran to the extent justified by Iran's behavior outside the area of nuclear research and uranium enrichment. Look at that as an opportunity because you could make a list of every sanction any one of us here on this floor has thought of. And add in the creativity of the United States Senate and make a list of every sanction we could impose, I assure you that those sanctions and more are justified by the non-nuclear evil committed by the regime in Tehran.
Iran is more responsible than Russia for the hundreds of thousands of deaths in Syria. The lifeline of Assad's murderous regime is a lifeline to the aid, money, weapons, thugs, and training that Iran has provided--hundreds of thousands of deaths, an immoral responsibility of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Turn to Yemen, where tens of thousands of people have died because of Iran. Look at worldwide terrorism, and Iran is the number one state sponsor of terrorism year after year, according to our State Department. Look at the treatment by Iran of its own people, the murders by the state of anyone they identify as being part of the LGBT community, the murders by the state of women--it is usually women--
accused of adultery.
The evil that comes from the Islamic Republic far exceeds the ability of this House to identify sanction points. That is why the proper policy for the United States is to impose the maximum sanctions and to explain to the world that this is not a phony renunciation of the nuclear deal, but it is the appropriate response to Iran's actions that are outside of the nuclear deal.
If we do that, we will have substantial support from Europe, Asia, and elsewhere first for demanding that Iran continue to be subject to all the nuclear limitations and inspections that they agreed to under the deal and which continue to be enforced well in the next decade.
What we shall do next decade, well, I will come back here and give another speech next decade. But at least many years deep in the next decade, this deal provides us with valuable limitations and valuable inspections of the Iran nuclear program, and Europe will insist that those be adhered to.
Second, Europe may join us in the sanctions when we sanction Iran for its actions in Syria, its actions to its own people, its actions in Yemen. One more I should add, and that is Iran's violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions by testing and developing missiles and exporting weapons.
So if we stick with the deal and we sanction Iran, they may choose--
if those sanctions are as effective as I think they can be--to walk away from the deal. But if they do, we will have the whole world with us enforcing sanctions against Iran.
Now, there is one part of the policy I put forward that may not meet the psychological needs of the President of the United States, for he has shown an uncontrollable personal need to pour disgusting liquids on anything associated with President Obama. Maybe it meets his psychological needs to say he is renouncing the nuclear deal. But the fact is we don't have to renounce the nuclear deal and liberate Iran from its obligations in order to impose the toughest imaginable sanctions on this regime that is doing so much evil.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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