Conservatives and Foreign Aid

by | May 11, 2017

Conservatives and Foreign Aid

by | May 11, 2017

Conservatives maintain that they believe in the Constitution, limited government, private property, individual liberty, and the free market. Their actions when it comes to foreign aid show that they believe in none of those things.

According to ForeignAssistance.gov (a new government website dedicated to foreign aid),

The U.S. Government provides assistance to over 100 countries around the world.

There are over 20 U.S. Government agencies responsible for either funding or executing U.S. foreign assistance activities.

Foreign assistance funding is classified into one of nine categories, which is further detailed into 52 sectors. Funds are uniquely aligned to one category and sector.

For fiscal year 2017, the top ten U.S. foreign assistance recipients are as follows:

  1. Afghanistan, $4.7 billion
  2. Israel, $3.1 billion
  3. Egypt, $1.46 billion
  4. Iraq, $1.14 billion
  5. Jordan, $1 billion
  6. Pakistan, $742 million
  7. Kenya, $626.4 million
  8. Nigeria, $606.1 million
  9. Tanzania, $575.3 million
  10. Ethiopia, $513.7 million

Total spending on foreign aid for fiscal year 2017 comes to $42.4 billion.

For fiscal year 2018, Donald Trump has proposed a 30.8 percent reduction in five foreign-assistance programs. That has alarmed some government bureaucrats and the writers of an article in Foreign Policy. Trump’s proposed reduction was put in perspective by some writers at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. In an article titled “Panic over Foreign Aid Budget Could Use Some Perspective,” they point out that “the foreign assistance budget nearly tripled under the George W. Bush administration from $9.1 billion in 1999 to $26 billion in 2008” and that “spending on foreign assistance increased even further under the Obama administration to $42.4 billion.”

Read the rest at the Future of Freedom Foundation.

About Laurence Vance

Laurence M. Vance is a columnist and policy adviser for the Future of Freedom Foundation, an associated scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and a columnist, blogger, and book reviewer at LewRockwell.com. He is also the author of Social Insecurity and The War on Drugs Is a War on Freedom. His newest books are War, Christianity, and the State: Essays on the Follies of Christian Militarism and War, Empire, and the Military: Essays on the Follies of War and U.S. Foreign Policy.

Our Books

latest book lineup.

Related Articles

Related

In Defense of Inaction

In Defense of Inaction

On March 17, The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed by a woman named Mary Anastasia O’Grady titled, “Giving up on Haiti Isn’t a U.S. Option.” She argues, in short, that Americans don’t have a choice but to continue doing all the things that have failed in the past...

read more
Is America a Rogue Superpower?

Is America a Rogue Superpower?

“Unipolar” used to mean that the United States was, at least in theory, alone in leading the world. Now “unipolar” means that the United States is alone and isolated in opposition to the world. In global affairs, a hegemon is a nation that leads because it has the...

read more
Collateral Murder 2.0

Collateral Murder 2.0

When the footage of Reuters journalists and civilians were Wikileaked to the world, there was outrage. A shame exhibited by some in the American government caused them to reel from the crime that had been exposed, to downplay the prevalence of such murders, and...

read more
The Fed and the Fight for 2%

The Fed and the Fight for 2%

Last week, Jerome Powell & Co. met to issue an immediate decision regarding the status of the federal funds rate for March, and to provide some insight into the trajectory of monetary policy for the rest of 2024 and into 2025. As with the past few inflation...

read more
Truth Has No Chance on Capitol Hill

Truth Has No Chance on Capitol Hill

Americans are encouraged to believe that the U.S. Congress is practically on automatic pilot to serve the public. Happily, most Americans are not so gullible and Congress receives much of the contempt it deserves in public opinion polls. But the media and the...

read more