Thread: U.S. foreign aid, revised

Wonder where mexico fits in here? Any bets that their "aid" increases?

U.S. foreign aid, revised

The New York TimesPublished: November 26, 2006

Like many of its predecessors, the Bush administration wants to reform U.S. foreign aid. These programs sorely need better coordination and predictability - and a clear way to measure whether they are working. Randall Tobias, the new director of foreign assistance, is a good manager and could impose much-needed coherence.

But there are worrisome signs that the administration is also planning deep cuts in antipoverty spending as aid is supposedly reoriented to promote democracy and fight terrorism.

A little-noticed statement on the Web site of the Agency for International Development says the goal is to "focus all U.S. foreign assistance on helping to build and sustain democratic and well-governed states."

Of the nearly $24 billion requested by the State Department for foreign aid this year, a little over $1 billion is devoted to democracy programs, including training legislative staffs, helping reform courts, and working with women's and business organizations.

Privately, officials say that number is likely to rise substantially in next year's budget request, while the roughly $3.7 billion devoted to antipoverty programs - fighting disease, promoting education, providing microcredit loans - is likely to fall to make up the difference.

While foreign aid spending is up over all in the Bush administration, the increase has come almost entirely in four programs: aid to Iraq and Afghanistan, the 15-country global AIDS initiative, and the new Millennium Challenge Corp., which seeks to help well-governed poor countries.

In a worrisome sign, money for programs to address childhood disease and maternal mortality is down by one-third in this year's budget request. The administration is also cutting antipoverty spending in Latin America and Africa to pay for programs in Islamic countries, considered to be front-line states in the war against terror.

Promoting democracy and fighting terrorism are laudable goals. But such work needs to come on top of - not instead of - financing antipoverty programs, which save hundreds of thousands of lives and earn untold good will for the United States.

There is also little indication that America knows how to build democracy. There are too many worrisome reports of programs to encourage privatization turning into boondoggles for contractors, or new anticorruption agencies dissolved or made toothless by those in power.

This is no time to cut off the world's poor, especially for programs with such an uncertain record. If the administration will not restore a sensible balance to foreign aid, the new Congress should.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/11/26/ ... /edaid.php

Originally Posted by 2ndamendsis

Wonder where mexico fits in here? Any bets that their "aid" increases?

Yep.

Hi 2ndAmendsis,

Here's a shorter, more accurate definition of today's foreign aid:

Definition of Foreign Aid: American citizens sacrifice their jobs for

• Illegal aliens (invaders)[/*:m:vdo1ics8]
• H-1B visa card holders (H-1Bs are NOT immigrants)[/*:m:vdo1ics8]
• L-1 visa card holders (L-1s are NOT immigrants)[/*:m:vdo1ics8]
• Employees of India's body shops (Tata, Wiprospectramind, Sat'yam, Infosys, HCL, Accenture, etc)[/*:m:vdo1ics8]
• Chinese workers (adult)[/*:m:vdo1ics8]
• Chinese workers (children)[/*:m:vdo1ics8]

You get fired - they get hired.
Body shop employees in Chennai, India, benefit from the spoils of US layoffs.


Foreign Aid means be a Walmart shopper
in support of Communist Chinese child labor.


Chinese factory workers
making Walmart shoppers happy

Yeah, I'm sure we need to help China:

http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/displ ... m0.5951044

COTO

as usual, you always know how to get to the heart of the issue.

** those "microcredit loans* are very dangerous, imho. I'm sensing that they're going to cause major problems soon.

got anything