The Hill – Matthew Wallin: Foreign aid shouldn’t be first thing on the chopping block
Source: The Hill, 10/31/2011
Matthew Wallin of the American Security Project writes an op-ed in The Hill.
“In this fiscal climate, recent debates have brought a growing amount of attention and support to the notion that the U.S. foreign aid budget should be cut. Many Americans, concerned that the government is spending their hard-earned tax dollars abroad when there are so many pressing issues at home, argue that we need to take care of ourselves before we take care of others.
There is validity to the argument. After all, how can someone help others if they themselves are bed-ridden? Why should we as a country spend tens of billions on foreign aid when our infrastructure crumbles and the government is desperately seeking ways to reign in our spending?
The answer is: it is in our national interest to do so.
Foreign assistance creates long lasting partnerships with countries and foreign publics—partnerships that benefit the national security of the United States. By helping to educate, empower, employ, and befriend people in other countries, we decrease instability that we have ended up spending trillions to combat.
So what are we spending to do this? Relatively little. The entirety of non-military U.S. foreign assistance money for FY2011 is $34.7 billion. That amounts to less than one percent of the Federal budget. Let me repeat that again: one percent. That’s one percent we spend on the entire world. And as a percentage of GDP, the U.S. has ranked rather low on its government-sponsored foreign aid, giving only 1/5th the amount Sweden does. (However, it is important to note that in terms of private donations the U.S. ranks very high.)…
