Sugar Daddy

The United States provides nearly $10 billion a year in economic assistance, mostly in grants. Giving aid to foreign countries originated with The Marshall plan and originally focused on furthering our foreign policy objectives such as supporting anti-communist countries. A portion of our aid to other countries goes for humanitarian relief, but for the remainder some serious questions linger about whether we're really getting our money's worth.

There are those who claim the US doesn't give enough money to foreign countries. (here.) They point to the fact that US aid, in terms of percentage of our GNP is the lowest of any industrialized nation in the world. Our giving amounts to only .1% of our Gross National Product. At events like the World Summit on Sustainable Development the US is ridiculed because we give less of our GNP than any other country in the world. Implicit in this ridicule is that we somehow owe money to other countries because we've been successful and, for the most part, haven't squandered our resources on things like repressing our own citizens.

Those who are critical of our lack of foreign aid typically represent the various world organizations like the UN, the IMF, and other NGO's. These are the same people who espouse the one world government view and would have us violate our sovreignty by being subject to the International Criminal Court. We're supposed to feel guilty for being successful and I suppose we're supposed to feel obligated to these other countries.

These groups usually neglect to mention that in terms of raw dollars we give more foreign aid than any other country. In 2003, we gave over 11 billion dollars in foreign aid. They neglect to mention that a conservative estimate of American's private giving is at least $34 Billion dollars. Our foreign aid far outstrips the aid provided by any other country. (This is without even considering the 81 Billion dollars recently provided to Iraq and Afganistan.)

If we were making a difference in these countries, either in terms of promoting democracy, economic reforms, or at least overall humanitarian relief, then it wouldn't be such a tragic failure. A report written by the Cato Institute examines the results of our foreign aid and concludes that the result has been greater debt, dependency and poverty.

Our foreign aid has also done little to positively influence the support of our foreign policy initiatives. A report by The heritage foundation concluded the following:

• 74 percent of US foreign aid recipients voted against the United States a majority of the time. This was up from 68 percent in 1996 and 64 percent in 1995. Thus, nearly three out of every four foreign aid recipients vote against the United States in the U.N. most of the time.
  
• US foreign aid recipient votes against the United States have increased in number in each of the past three years.
  
• Of the ten largest recipients of U.S. foreign aid, six voted against the United States more than half the time. This is the same level as in the 1996 U.N. session

This lengthy document details the objectives of our foreign aid program. Clearly, there are some instances where foreign aid is in our best interests and may even be a moral imperative in the interest of humanitarian needs. However, there are some who argue convincingly that it's time to turn off the foreign aid.

A listing of the foreign aid being doled out is here. Some examples from that list; Palestine 111 million, Egypt 919 million, Belarus 12 million, Samoa 1.3 million, Barbados 1.2 million, Israel 529 million, and Mexico 64 million. Clearly some serious questions need to be asked about why we're giving these countries so much money, or why we're giving them anything at all.

Coincidentally, the left-leaning NGO's are very active in pointing out how much we give Israel. While searching for information on this article I came across many articles decrying our aid to them. They fail to highlight that Israel is a democratic country and a loyal ally. Somehow we're supposed to believe that the Palestinians are more deserving of our aid. Some so-called aid sites like this one seem more interested in propogating anti-Bush and anti-USA propoganda than they are in fostering greater foreign aid.

One pleasant surprise was an organization called C-FAR. C-FAR is a group of Canadians (amazing isn't it?) who oppose the type of foreign aid given by their country to other countries merely due to a guilt-trip about being successful. There definitely needs to be more of an outcry from US Citizens about our foreign aid. In times when there is so much being said regarding our budget deficits and especially when the war on terrorism is costing us so much, we can't afford to foolishly throw our money away. A great deal of our foreign aid is simply money wasted and this needs to be stopped.

There is a legitimate place for foreign aid. Events like the earthquake in Iran are a perfect example of how humanitarian aid can serve a legitimate moral and foreign policy purpose. Perhaps, people like this guy and this guy can attest to the usefulness of doing joint military readiness exercises and training foreign military groups. However, legitimate aid seems like it should be far less than it is currently. We desperately need Welfare Reform for these countries. There is no inherent reason why the US should be the Sugar Daddy to the World.