All that bellyaching about Obama’s out of control spending? Bunk.
All that ballyhoo about how the U.S. spends way too much on foreign aid? Dangerous anti-American propaganda; we don’t spend enough.
For evidence, look at the Congressional Budget Office‘s non-partisan analysis of the State Department reauthorization act for the coming year, Fiscal 2013. And please, get the facts before you start to complain.
H.R. 6018, Foreign Relations Reauthorization Act, Fiscal Year 2013
Page 1 of CBO’s analysis:
H.R. 6018 would authorize appropriations for the Department of State and related agencies, the Peace Corps, and international broadcasting activities. CBO estimates that implementing the bill would cost $15.8 billion over the 2013-2017 period, assuming appropriation of the specified and estimated amounts.
We’re talking actual outlays for the State Department, for all of our diplomatic efforts to prevent war, secure and strengthen peace, represent U.S. interests in trade and defense and culture, and manage the provision of about $37 billion in aid to other nations, of a total around $9.3 billion for FY 2013. (See page 2)
That’s a pittance.
Even if we include the $37 billion in foreign aid payouts, that’s less than $50 billion a year to manage and maintain our vital relationships in the world.
You can get the country-by-country breakdown of foreign aid, from the horse’s mouth, at this site.
Less than 1% of our national budget goes to foreign aid.
Less than 1 penny of every dollar you pay in taxes, goes to foreign aid.
How much would be enough? We could double foreign aid without any significant effect to the deficits, but with huge effects in good will and actual production of peace overseas.
Most people think a “fair” percentage of the budget to dedicate to foreign aid would be about 10%.
This is no time for austerity in federal spending.
More:
- House subcommittee approves $2B in foreign aid cuts (devex.com)
- Iraq war reconstruction: $6 billion to $8 billion wasted, US official says (openchannel.msnbc.msn.com)
- Committee Lawmakers Join Ranks to Pass ‘Carefully Crafted’ State Dep’t. Authorization Bill (cnsnews.com)
- CBO Forecasts Recession In United States For First Half Of 2013 (seekingalpha.com)
- Foreign Service Staffing Gaps, and Oh, Diplomacy 3.0 Hiring Initiative to Conclude in FY2023 (diplopundit.net)
- HFAC approves authorization bill, minus that pesky foreign assistance part (devex.com)
- Four dangerous myths about government spending (salon.com)
- U.S. to run first (monthly) surplus since 2008: CBO (democraticunderground.com)
What’s changed in this chart from 2010? Not much:
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 
[…] a nation, the U.S. does not spend enough on foreign aid. We should spend […]
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[…] ballyhoo about how the U.S. spends way too much on foreign aid? Dangerous anti-American propaganda; we don’t spend enough.”“In the bitterest of ironies, Mr Bernanke is giving America a Japanese recovery. He is […]
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Oh and Morgan is also conveniently forgetting that foreign aid helps open up foreign markets to US businesses….
So just to ask a purely emotional question, Morgan, if you and your party are such patriots then why are you and your party’s actions so completely at odds with what’s best for America?
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One of my concerns, Morgan, is the almost complete inability to think through what the arguments should be, on the part of conservatives. Of course I don’t justify the entire argument here. Nor do I claim to.
But you suggest that all there is to the argument, is the Samuel Gompers or Oliver Twist cry for “More!”
Santayana’s ghost has been parked outside your window for years, now, an you have yet to pay attention.
Facts are facts. We don’t spend enough on foreign aid. There are lots of justifications, some discussed here before, like the need for new Marshall Plan for Egypt, Syria, Iraq, maybe Iran, Pakistan, Greece, Haiti, Somalia, now Mali, Libya, and a dozen other places across the world where we could build peace, cement peace, institutionalize peace, promote democracy, protect human rights, and generally do the good that Americans ought to do, and want to do.
But Morgan and others in the “We Can’t Afford To Be Great Anymore” Party think that spending money, even wisely, can never be an investment. They’d be more in favor if we swelled their personal bank accounts, but to just suggest spending money to bring world peace — well! What sort of Tomfoolery is that?
Morgan and his comrades hope you don’t know the story, dear reader, and they’ll do what they can to poke fun at the tried and true methods of bringing peace, and they’ll do everything they can to undermine serious efforts to bring peace, especially if done by a Democrat, and super-especially if it’s done by Barack Obama.
P.S., Morgan: Here’s the original of that anti-Obama cartoon you have in the left-ear of your post. You guys can’t even tell a joke without trying to spin it. You had a perfectly good cartoon by Clay Bennett in the Chattanooga Times-Free Press (of October 29, 2009), but you had to cover up the art and the facts.
That’s the original, with attribution. You guys can’t even plagiarize straight.
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And your side is trumping up a purely bulls###-driven argument against foreign aid. that being “We’ll save so much money if we cut it.”
But gee..I have to wonder if we had spent a bit more time in Afghanistan and a bit more resources in Afghanistan and helping them rebuild after the Soviets pulled out would we have had to turn around and invade them 20 years later…
By the by…emotion driven arguments trump bullshit driven arguments every time.
That and your side couldn’t come up with a logical and rational argument if it’s life depended on it.
But if you want a non-emotional and a borrowed from Shrub’s mindset…consider foreign aid another means of ensuring that terrorists don’t get a hold in places.
Unless of course you think increasing the # of bases that terrorists have and the # of terrorists is a jolly good idea….
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[…] for example, is out there trumping up a purely emotion-driven argument in favor of foreign aid. His argument all comes down to, and I quote, “That’s a pittance.” Well, I’m not so much against foreign […]
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