As the Debit talks between the House Republicans and the administration and Senate Democrats continue, the House negotiators should put America’s foreign aid budget on the table. When Americans understand the extent to which we, as the nation are running the largest budget deficit in the world, are subsidizing almost every other nation on earth, they will finally start to get MAD. Mad enough, maybe, to go the polls in 2012 and vote the bums out.
With the Democrats reportedly willing to cut about half of the $61 billion the GOP has sought, much of the balance could come from a moratorium in paying out the $50 billion of foreign economic and military aid the United States dispenses every year. Rather than engage in a numerical debate, the Republicans should make the fight about whether or not to cut the foreign aid budget. Who will defend foreign aid when we have a $1.6 trillion deficit?
American foreign aid appropriations have escalated from about $20 billion in 2000 to $50 billion today. Almost every single nation on earth gets our foreign aid. The major recipients of the $35 billion in economic aid we dispense are: Afghanistan, $2.6 billion; Israel, $3 billion; Iraq, $766 million; and Egypt, $1.6 billion.
But beyond these aid packages, we give Africa $7 billion in economic aid each year. We donate $2 billion to the Western Hemisphere (only about $400 million of it to Haiti). We give Asia apart from Afghanistan $2 billion. And we give Europe almost $1 billion.
Foreign aid has never been politically popular in the United States, and now is the time to put it on the table in the budget talks. If the Democrats want to shut down the government so that we can give more money in foreign aid, let them do it!
While it is true that much of the foreign aid we dispense goes to a few countries, almost everybody gets something. Even apart from the major aid recipients (Israel, Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq), here is a partial list of the other nations that got more than $100 million in U.S. aid in 2010:
Ivory Coast — $138 million
Democratic Republic of the Congo — $213
Ethiopia — $584
Ghana — $175
Kenya — $714
Liberia — $219
Malawi — $179
Mali — $169
Mozambique — $415
Namibia — $103
Nigeria — $648
Rwanda — $241
Senegal — $137
South Africa — $586
Sudan — $440
Tanzania — $550
Uganda — $480
Zambia — $409
Indonesia — $228
Philippines — $133
Vietnam — $123
Ukraine — $124
One country that isn’t listed in the column above: China. Due to the disparity in trade between us and China’s currency manipulation, we are literary subsidizing a country that wants to destroy us. There should be a large tax on every item imported from China.
Even if we hold apart from the proposed moratorium on foreign aid those nations currently in the midst of key foreign conflicts in which there is an American interest — Afghanistan, Iraq, Egypt and Israel — there is still a pool of upwards of $30 billion from which to cut. With half of the fiscal year remaining, a pro-rated cut of $15 billion would fill most of the gap between the House and Senate proposals for reduction of spending.
But the larger point is that the House Republicans must put more than mere numbers in play in the debate with the administration and the Senate Democrats. As pressing as the need to cut government spending and our budget deficit is, few will storm the barricades over the difference between $30 billion and $60 billion in budget cuts. But if the issue is whether to fund foreign aid to every nation on Earth, it becomes one that all can grasp and the debate one in which all will participate — and not in a way to the Democrats’ liking.
And, if the negotiations do not succeed and a government shutdown looms, just shut down the foreign aid budget. The House should pass the rest of the continuing resolution. Let the rest of the government operate as usual, just foreign aid will no longer be dispensed. Democrats cannot and will not trigger a general shutdown to protect the foreign aid budget, believe me.
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