Foreign aid should be stopped

[Foreboding]

Reasons why foreign aid should be stopped:

• You cannot properly monitor how your country's money is spent, which often leads to heavy corruption.
• A country that has homeless, disabled and mentally ill citizens living within its borders should concentrate on them as opposed to giving money to foreign countries.
• Money that could be better spent on health, education and infrastructure is instead used to prolong (not resolve) a problem that is irreparable in its current form.
• Giving money unconditionally to another country means the receiving country has less incentive to be self-sustaining.
• If a country cannot survive without aid from other countries, then it should not exist as an independent state.

It might be a cold pill to swallow, but the realisation that the above arguments hold substance is true.

[I Push Buttons]

Reasons why it should exists:
- Pakistan is always on the brink of collapse and has a sizable nuclear arsenal.
- Failed states/weak governments allow terrorist groups and criminal cartels to function without restriction.
- Failed states can inhibit free trade in the regions in which they exist.
- Foreign aid allows us to have a say (even if marginal) in the goings on of other nations, which is beneficial to our interests.

[announced]

i have to agree foreign aid is a waste of money. i mean the US needs to help out its citizens first, getting them off welfare or atleast living decently so theres like almost no homeless or unemployment. could fix lots of problems if we stopped giving out checks to other countries and instead focused on fixing the US first.

even if we have a say on the goings of other nations, we cant even be sure their listening.

[Herecius]

Assuming this is about the US, since most threads like this tend to be, it should be known, specifically known by you, that the amount of the US budget that goes to foreign aid is almost nothing. Seriously next to nothing compared to the overall budget. It's less than 1%, last I looked.

That's a good investment. An excellent one, really. Foreign aid not only gives the aiding country serious clout with the aided country's affairs, but if such a small amount of the budget can be used to alleviate famine, food shortages, or medicine shortages for thousands, if not millions of poverty-stricken people somewhere, then it's an excellent investment.

Seriously though, removing foreign aid from the US budget would be utterly pointless. It would do nothing to alleviate national debt, and certainly nothing to make a dent in our own medical and infrastructure costs. Maintaining the United States, a country that is not only one of the largest in sheer size, but one of the most populated at the same time, is an incredibly expensive endeavor. Dumping every cent we spend on foreign aid directly back into our own economy would barely alter our domestic economics. You have to remember how large the United States is compared to most of the countries that receive any foreign aid. Many of our states are both larger AND more populated than many of the countries receiving aid.

[Nilinor]

Assuming this is about the US, since most threads like this tend to be, it should be known, specifically known by you, that the amount of the US budget that goes to foreign aid is almost nothing. Seriously next to nothing compared to the overall budget. It's less than 1%, last I looked.

This is the truth, you see "23 billion a year going to foreign aid" that.. is very little. That 23 billion wouldn't even be close to putting a dent into anything about welfare or whatever.. but lets use welfare as an example.

109 million people live in homes with welfare.. (that includes children/disabled etc). If we put that 23 billion to work

Everyone person would get an extra $212 (rounded up) dollars a YEAR. Pretty much you would get an extra month of groceries per person if you were buying on the cheap. Thats why it doesn't matter.

[Orlong]

Assuming this is about the US, since most threads like this tend to be, it should be known, specifically known by you, that the amount of the US budget that goes to foreign aid is almost nothing. Seriously next to nothing compared to the overall budget. It's less than 1%, last I looked.

You know. Im really tired of hearing this excuse as a means to justify continuing to waste money on a given budget item on most topics here. Foreign aid is only 1%, welfare is only 1%, NASA is less than 1%, etc.. If you cut all this crap, all those 1%s add up to quite a bit

[Herecius]

You know. Im really tired of hearing this excuse as a means to justify continuing to waste money on a given budget item on most topics here. Foreign aid is only 1%, welfare is only 1%, NASA is less than 1%, etc.. If you cut all this crap, all those 1%s add up to quite a bit

It's not an excuse, it's an explanation as to why it's an excellent investment. Small expenditure for an outstanding return.

And if you think welfare is only one percent of our budget, you have absolutely no god damn idea what you're talking about. The amount of money the US spends on welfare is in the fucking TRILLIONS. Trillions over several years, mind you, but to say it's only 1% is a blatant and gross misrepresentation of facts.

EDIT: And even if you deliberately exclude things like medicaid from what is considered 'welfare,' then you still end up with a massive, massive number. Hundreds of billions of dollars.

[dextersmith]

Most of it is pocketed by government officials there and hardly make it to the people.

[Deleted]

You know. Im really tired of hearing this excuse as a means to justify continuing to waste money on a given budget item on most topics here. Foreign aid is only 1%, welfare is only 1%, NASA is less than 1%, etc.. If you cut all this crap, all those 1%s add up to quite a bit

3% so far.

[Wildtree]

i have to agree foreign aid is a waste of money. i mean the US needs to help out its citizens first, getting them off welfare or atleast living decently so theres like almost no homeless or unemployment. could fix lots of problems if we stopped giving out checks to other countries and instead focused on fixing the US first.

even if we have a say on the goings of other nations, we cant even be sure their listening.

One help isn't exclusive to the other. Don't be foolish. The budget money that goes into foreign aid is negligible...
And it's on the contrary even. The US needs to step up and take some of those unprecedented numbers of refugees in.
After all, it's been primarily the US' actions in the middle east that destabilized the entire region to an extent, that we now see mass migration.

On that note.. Someone earlier mentioned Pakistan... Pakistan and Jordan are the countries that have to cope with the lion share of these people currently.
It's insane. Something's gotta happen, we're heading for disaster.

[Lava Bucket]

Eliminating US aid to other countries is a naively isolationist idea. We are affected by what other countries do and we have large porous borders. As mentioned by I Push Buttons, foreign aid can be used as a diplomatic lever to convince foreign leaders to do what we want them to. Since I'm a filthy liberal, I believe that US interests should include things like not murdering people and not destroying the environment that we need to survive.

[Herecius]

Most of it is pocketed by government officials there and hardly make it to the people.

Where is 'there'? Do you know where foreign aid money all goes? Where are your breakdowns?

[Lollis]

I don't have an issue with us sending foreign aid.
I have an issue with us sending foreign aid to countries with extremely unhelpful internal spending such as India with its space program.

[Wildtree]

It's not an excuse, it's an explanation as to why it's an excellent investment. Small expenditure for an outstanding return.

And if you think welfare is only one percent of our budget, you have absolutely no god damn idea what you're talking about. The amount of money the US spends on welfare is in the fucking TRILLIONS. Trillions over several years, mind you, but to say it's only 1% is a blatant and gross misrepresentation of facts.

Social services are about 50%, you're right.
But that's of course everything, incl. health, retirement.. the whole nine yard..

[Herecius]

Social services are about 50%, you're right.
But that's of course everything, incl. health, retirement.. the whole nine yard..

If you want to exclude medicaid and educational opportunity federal aid, you still end up with hundreds of billions being spent on cash welfare assistance programs. It blows the costs of foreign aid totally out of the water. Also, if you do include everything, it's actually more like 60%, not 50. It's a really huge amount. The US spends a shitload of money. Arguably far too much, and extremely inefficiently.

http://www.cbpp.org/research/policy-...tax-dollars-go

About 11 percent of the federal budget in 2014, or $370 billion, supported programs that provide aid (other than health insurance or Social Security benefits) to individuals and families facing hardship.

Remember, that's specifically excluding everything except for tax credits and cash welfare assistance for families facing down poverty.

[Wildtree]

I don't have an issue with us sending foreign aid.
I have an issue with us sending foreign aid to countries with extremely unhelpful internal spending such as India with its space program.

Money to India isn't "Foreign Aid". It's instead an investment, similar to buying stocks from an upcoming corporation. Down the road your investment pays off, and you rake in the profits 10 folds and more.

- - - Updated - - -

If you want to exclude medicaid and educational opportunity federal aid, you still end up with hundreds of billions being spent on cash welfare assistance programs. It blows the costs of foreign aid totally out of the water.

Yeah, I already said you're right

[Deleted]

I agree. People who work want to be paid for their work to make a living. If you give people free food and so on, how is the local farmer going to make it? We've made them reliant on support when we should've made them self-sustaining.

[Acidbaron]

You know the best part about countries we support that are in need, such as many african nations.

We lend them money, they get in debt, we lend them more money at the cost of becoming owners of their natural resources. We don't have to worry about the population and aren't linked to the problems of their current day government but get all the goodies, it's like all the good from colonialism without the bad

Perverse practice but that's the way the world works.

[Kalis]

Foreign Aid isn't really charity, we aren't that nice, it's more of a bribe.

[Wildtree]

I agree. People who work want to be paid for their work to make a living. If you give people free food and so on, how is the local farmer going to make it? We've made them reliant on support when we should've made them self-sustaining.

the problems often are, that we fail providing said help. Your example is actually great. Because that's exactly what we've done, times and again. Providing aid for nations to bring up and maintain agriculture, and it failed. Times and again it failed..
You cannot make a farmer out of a hunter, in an extreme example. It's not gonna work.
Turning barren lands into farmlands, and expecting these people to keep up with it, proved to fail more than anything, for decades on ends.