Foreign Aid: Can we afford it/not to give it?

[45Auto]

http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/poli...oreign-aid.htm

People have been grumbling that we can't afford to give all of these billions to our friends and allies, such as Isreal. I have been hearing that 3 billion 175million is alot of money, not to mention the 1.5 Billion for Egypt to keep Egypt from attacking Isreal. The grumbling (without proof) is that we don't even give that much money to some of our own states. But, can we afford not to support Isreal. Do we have any other friends in the area?

What do you think?

[Insulation Tim]

Originally Posted by 45Auto

http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/poli...oreign-aid.htm

People have been grumbling that we can't afford to give all of these billions to our friends and allies, such as Isreal. I have been hearing that 3 billion 175million is alot of money, not to mention the 1.5 Billion for Egypt to keep Egypt from attacking Isreal. The grumbling (without proof) is that we don't even give that much money to some of our own states. But, can we afford not to support Isreal. Do we have any other friends in the area?

What do you think?

Is Israel truly a friend? We've caught them spying on us many times.

I've always wondered if we were in dire straights here, just how much of a "friend" Israel would be to us?

[TheGunClinger]

I am sure that there are countries that we should help out but there are Many countries that take our money and then crap on us. We should rethink on who is our true friends and who are not. I havnt heard word one from our illustrious leaders about helping get the national debt under control by eliminating a whole bunch of foreign aid.

[pickenup]

It is my tax dollars.
Keep it in THIS country.

[hogger129]

I take Ron Paul's view towards foreign aid. It's never been the responsibility of the United States to ensure the survival of any foreign country, nor is it our job to subsidize anybody. I feel we should worry about this country, first and only.

I'm not saying we shouldn't be allies with anybody. You can be friends, but why hand out more money to people that we don't even have?

[Bobitis]

Great topic.

The problem with foreign aid (and domestic) is the corruption involved.
How much have we given to Haiti? What was the outcome?
How much have we spent on Katrina? What was the outcome?
How MUCH have we given the UN?

Do I need to go further?

[armedandsafe]

Some foreign aid is useful and helpful. Some is merely sticky left over from long ago. Some is flushed down the toilet before it reaches the people it is supposed to help. Some comes right back to the US to be deposited in certain politicians', lobbyists' and bureaucrats' accounts.

I think we could stop a tremendous amount of foreign aid by doing in certain countries what we are doing in Irag and Afghanistan. Make them develop their own security forces and stand guard on their own picket line. Then we could bring home our own troops. Thousands of them. Of those thousands, might we get to place even a dozen or so men on our Southern border?

Pops

[old 33]

IMO...foreign aid needs to be drastically cut back by at a minimum 70%...

[firelegs22]

it's all about balance, and choossing where we give out money. If we cut off all foreign aid I'm sure we would have issues in the national security sector. At the same time why are we helping others when we cant help ourselves? I think foreign aid needs to be cut back to include only situations that are critical. These handouts can be cut back even more if we dont give money to nations when there is corruption.

This country helps others, but we need to help less untill we get back on our feet (so that we can help more). IMO

[hunter29180]

sometimes it is to our advantage to give..its part of our christian hertiage to give to the poor and needy..BUT...not till we have gave so much that we JOIN them! yes its past time to cut back drastacally! we need to pay down our debt..if our government cant be finacally responsible, how can they ask the people to be? most people follow the majority lead...the government certinally is a majority!

we need to honor our current oblications but NOT take on any more! if we are forced to protect ourselves overseas, we are not responsible for rebuilding them..most never become allys anyways! so why rebuild them? so they can attack us again?

just my personal opinion.....

[45Auto]

Good points everyone. With tax cuts and budget cuts taking money away from seniors, education, the military, etc. all of our spending must to be justified. But alot of it seems to escape national attention.

For example, in the last 10 years we have given over 27 Billion dollars to Isreal alone. There must be some good reasons for this spending, but no one ever debates it. Our mass media giants never have any articles about these billions. I have heard nothing on NPR, nothing on Fox, not even Rush has ever talked about it.

Sometimes I think we Americans are extremely uniformed.

[RunningOnMT]

Keep on supporting Israel and our true friends, but no more bribes for peace to countries that would just as soon see us sink into the ocean. And yes Israel is a friend.

[jim brady]

Isreal is a friend of the U.S., and should receive our support in military areas. They have been much more stead-fast as friends than have we.

This 'Foriegn Aid' is a farce. Most of what we send to other countries ens up in the pockets of corrupt officials (some of them here, too). I think Ron Paul is generally a goof-ball, and agree with him rarely. Isolationism didn't work for us from the 30's 'till Pearl Harbor, and we can't stick our heads in the sand and pretend that if we ignore the world trouble will stay away.

We do need to close military bases in Germany and Japan. We need to charge the South Koreans for our services in rendering protection for them. How is it that WE lease bases from South Koreans to protect them from Communist North Korean aggression? I say CHARGE THEM FOR US BEING THERE. They make bundles of cash off of us and yet WE pay them to keep them free? Make 'em pony-up.

I say close the bases, make them pay for our services, or let them pay their own cost of defending their own soil.

Anybody but me remember when every liberal on the planet called the Afghanistan and Iraq wars "George Bush's War For Oil"????? We already have that shadow cast upon American honor by our own elite citizenry, so I say go ahead and make the Kwaitis and the Iraqis pay us back in oil. We already paid the price, so we may as well collect.

[ozo]

There is chatter about this on BBC and CBBC radio. They have at times(yesterday on CBBC) gone into great detail. High points were the Israeli government has drastically changed it's views and is NOT the friend to the US that it was, and the amount of money that we give to Israel isn't so much in cash as it is in weapons.
One good thing Mubarak did was honor the treaty between Egypt and Israel even though they were not truly allies.
We are still paying Japan for rebuilding after the bomb was dropped.

[whirley]

Easy way to save billions...Just move the U.N. to some third world country in Africa. That will boost their economy, and help ours. We won't have to keep watching all the spies sent by our enemies in the U.N. Think of the parking spaces that will become available when the Diplomatically protected scofflaw foreign owned automobiles are no longer here. Besides since the Islamic Terrorists destroyed the World Trade Center, we need the office space! Then stop paying 25% of U.N. expenses, just pay our 150\th like the rest of these countries. They cry that they're broke, well so are we. Welcome to the poor house!

[al45lc]

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Many aren't perfect, but what is?
Dump Isreal, and watch what happens to that region. Don't think it will affect us? You really don't want it to happen.
Isolationism or just not being involved is a time bomb in our lap.
Like it or not, we're in it for the long haul. Or war.

[Gun Geezer]

When the Speaker of the House stands up on national television and says. "We're broke!" It's time to halt spending this year, not over a period of a decade as proposed by the big "O". We need to cut into the sacred cows of welfare, medicaid, foreign aid, earmarks and reform social security so that benefits only go to those who have paid into it. This will eliminate the deficit and pay down the National Debt this year, not over the next ten. With these cuts, over the next ten years we would have enough surplus to lower taxes. Fat chance!

[RunningOnMT]

Originally Posted by Gun Geezer

When the Speaker of the House stands up on national television and says. "We're broke!" It's time to halt spending this year, not over a period of a decade as proposed by the big "O". We need to cut into the sacred cows of welfare, medicaid, foreign aid, earmarks and reform social security so that benefits only go to those who have paid into it. This will eliminate the deficit and pay down the National Debt this year, not over the next ten. With these cuts, over the next ten years we would have enough surplus to lower taxes. Fat chance!

Well Said.

[Juker]

A lot of amens and hallelujahs here.

One of the reasons God has continued to bless this nation is because of our alliance with Israel. They are His chosen people, and it's not incumbent upon us to debate or question that. Our "leaders" (cough, gag) have done much to damage that relationship in recent years. Middle East peace talks? None of those scumbag nations want peace with Israel, they want Israel wiped off the map. The great peace we have is knowing that God will never allow Israel to fall - so nations who stand with Israel are definitely on the right side.

I say triple, quadraple our aid to Israel. Note who routinely votes against us in the U.N. and cut off their foreign aid completely. Stand with Israel, the U.K., Australia, and a small circle of others. Make these nations so strong no one would dare attack them, and let the others have at one another for the scraps.

My benevolence in the realm of international politics has dwindled greatly since the first Gulf War.

[whymememe]

We should give it to them the old fashioned way.

[HunterAlpha1]

Originally Posted by Insulation Tim

Is Israel truly a friend? We've caught them spying on us many times.

I've always wondered if we were in dire straights here, just how much of a "friend" Israel would be to us?

and how do you think we caught them spying on us? the best way for nations to be allies is to spy on each other constantly. that way each nation knows the other has nothing to hide. simple diplomacy.

[obxned]

As long as we owe money to any foreign government we are not in a posision to give money away.

[hunter29180]

I have long stated that we need to stop 80% of the so called foreign aid! just doing that would allow us as a nation to pay down the national debt in just a decade! and we need to get some politions to introduce a bill that limits the amount of aid given in a year to a small (less than 10%) of the total yearly budget. the % is total given combined and split amoung those we are giving to. so a budget for example of 1 million would give at a 10% amount of $100,000 total the idiots up there could give to foreign aid. (just a example)

[Archie]

We could certainly afford to stop giving any money to the United Nations. I would be happy to see them leave our soil and set up their HQ in Switzerland or perhaps the Democratic Republic of Congo. Any money to ANY UN organization is spent on anti-American causes.

Israel is our ally, long term. The BBC report saying Israel is no longer our ally is based on our current President's rather shabby treatment of the nation of Israel. Israel is the only free (in any real sense of the word) country in the Middle East and our best interests is to keep it free. Yes, they keep tabs - spies - on us and we keep tabs - spies - on them. And they normally - current administration in U. S. being abnormal - provide us with lots of information we can't get any other way. Just remember, for the U. S. the Islamic extremists can be most inconvenient and dangerous at times; for Israel, the Islamic extremists are right next door and want to kill them all.

We gave a lot of aid to Egypt under Hosni Mubarak. He was in fact a dictator; albeit one who kept peace in the Middle East and was reasonably on our side. The next government of Egypt will be controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood and will be another Islamic extremist breeding ground. The U. S. would do well to be careful in giving them much of anything.

We would do well to reevaluate much of our foreign aid. Closing down bases in Japan and Germany was mentioned. The only reason many of the countries in Europe - socialist based - were able to keep from going broke for so long was we - the U. S. - was providing virtually all their military defense costs. Without that funding, those socialist nations will go broke even faster than they are now. Perhaps they will get their act together and dump socialism. Maybe not, if the Greek population is any indicator.

However, as also mentioned prior, isolationism only sort of worked in the days when the oceans to our East and West were formidable barriers. With air power, they aren't. We have to keep up on what's going on in the world about us. There are simply too many groups who hate the U. S. for being free and prosperous. (Yeah, even now, we're better off than most other nations - surely more prosperous than ANY Islamic state.)

Ron Paul has a great view of gun ownership. In terms of foreign policy, I really like his position on gun ownership. Ron Paul is Kim Jung Il's best friend and is totally unaware.

Sadly, foreign aid is not a big deal in the U. S. budget. During the period 2000 - 2010, the U. S. gave Israel just under Four Billion dollars in various kinds of assistance, mostly military. If anyone remembers, in 2010 President Obama's 'Stimulus Package' spent more than twice that amount with the stroke of a pen. We know what happened with all the aid going to Israel. Less than 20% of the Stimulus money can be traced to an actual finished project.

We can cut a lot of foreign aid, but foreign aid is not the biggest single item in the U. S. budget we could terminate.

As far as 'keep my tax money in the U. S.' the real answer is to 'keep our tax money in our pockets'. There are many programs that would be better - more economically and efficiently with desired results - run by private concerns. Without tax money at all.

Someone suggest to cut foreign aid by 75%. Okay. Let's cut the size and scope of government by a minimum of 50%. We could start by ending the Departments of Education and Energy. Neither of them do a cotton picking thing to make the U. S. a better place to live. The EPA could stand a serious cleaning as well.

None of this is going to even get started with Democrats running anything. Remember that when you vote.

[HunterAlpha1]

i wonder what would happen if we were to withhold foreign aid to egypt pending on the egyptian military's removal of the muslim brotherhood from power...