Spring Break
Charity should begin at home, not overseas
George Maynard
Issue date: 3/23/09 Section: Commentary
As American citizens lose their jobs and life savings here at home, it should make everyone happy to know that our government is still committed to spending hundreds of millions of dollars overseas to prop up governments and economies in other countries.
Sometime within the next few weeks, President Barack Obama is set to unveil a new plan to rescue Pakistan from itself by throwing more money at the corrupt and ineffective government so it can distribute money to its (likely) corrupt and ineffective economic system. Doesn't that sound familiar?
According to Reuters, the Obama administration is planning to triple "developmental" (non-military) aid to Pakistan from its current level of $450 million per year up to $1.35 billion for the next few years. Officials interviewed for the Reuters story also said that there would be few conditions on how this developmental aid would be spent.
That's fantastic! People are having their houses foreclosed on here in the United States, and the government wants to send the same people's money over to Pakistan to help aid in their country's "development." Here in America, we've already proven that handouts for "economic stimulus and development" with no strings attached don't work. Just last week, AIG used hundreds of millions of dollars that it got for a stimulus package to award bonuses of over $1 million to 74 of its executives. Nearly 400 other employees also received bonus checks worth between $1,000 and $1 million. If the government can't control how stimulus money is spent here at home, how do they expect to control how it is being spent overseas, by other countries' governments?
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the tripling of developmental aid to Pakistan is necessary to prove to them that America was interested in the long-term survival of Pakistan's government, not just for the duration of the war in Afghanistan. That assertion is ridiculous. Pakistan is an ally of convenience, and we should stop lying and pretending that relations between our countries are any different.
Sometime within the next few weeks, President Barack Obama is set to unveil a new plan to rescue Pakistan from itself by throwing more money at the corrupt and ineffective government so it can distribute money to its (likely) corrupt and ineffective economic system. Doesn't that sound familiar?
According to Reuters, the Obama administration is planning to triple "developmental" (non-military) aid to Pakistan from its current level of $450 million per year up to $1.35 billion for the next few years. Officials interviewed for the Reuters story also said that there would be few conditions on how this developmental aid would be spent.
That's fantastic! People are having their houses foreclosed on here in the United States, and the government wants to send the same people's money over to Pakistan to help aid in their country's "development." Here in America, we've already proven that handouts for "economic stimulus and development" with no strings attached don't work. Just last week, AIG used hundreds of millions of dollars that it got for a stimulus package to award bonuses of over $1 million to 74 of its executives. Nearly 400 other employees also received bonus checks worth between $1,000 and $1 million. If the government can't control how stimulus money is spent here at home, how do they expect to control how it is being spent overseas, by other countries' governments?
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that the tripling of developmental aid to Pakistan is necessary to prove to them that America was interested in the long-term survival of Pakistan's government, not just for the duration of the war in Afghanistan. That assertion is ridiculous. Pakistan is an ally of convenience, and we should stop lying and pretending that relations between our countries are any different.
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Cut Military Aid to Israel
posted 3/23/09 @ 4:03 PM EST
I totally agree with you. Moreover, everyone knows that Israel receives between $2b and $3 billion in military aid every year, which they used last January to bomb a defenseless civilian area killing 400 children and a thousand civilians in cold blood. (Continued…)
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