Why Don't they cut foreign walfare

lit joe · August-09-11, 11:06 PM

Dems & repubs never talk about cutting foreign aid. We got to cut entitelments news flash people paid in to medicare all there working lifes. But both sides protect the give aways to foreign countries who never paid in a penny to us. Can anyone tell me what the hell we owe them? Obama now has Brazil and Peru in oni it.While the E P A keeps the gulf shut down, George Sorso bought up oil companies in Brazil took our rigs on lease to drill of Brazil two million went to brazil in aid. Then he buys a refinery I think in Peru they get 5 million to buy our equipment. This will help our sales overseas. They can't make it but they'll get for free with our money. Thanks suckers will someone get obama a fiddle America is bruning. I'm just about had enough of these deadbeat countries sucking our money out of working peoples pockets. Time to cut that gravy train off. Both parties are guilty of this crap. So when they tell us entitelments are to big, we need new taxes. Tell them spot your foreign aid frist!

**ghettopalmetto** · August-09-11, 11:45 PM

Originally Posted by lit joe

Dems & repubs never talk about cutting foreign aid. We got to cut entitelments news flash people paid in to medicare all there working lifes. But both sides protect the give aways to foreign countries who never paid in a penny to us. Can anyone tell me what the hell we owe them? Obama now has Brazil and Peru in oni it.While the E P A keeps the gulf shut down, George Sorso bought up oil companies in Brazil took our rigs on lease to drill of Brazil two million went to brazil in aid. Then he buys a refinery I think in Peru they get 5 million to buy our equipment. This will help our sales overseas. They can't make it but they'll get for free with our money. Thanks suckers will someone get obama a fiddle America is bruning. I'm just about had enough of these deadbeat countries sucking our money out of working peoples pockets. Time to cut that gravy train off. Both parties are guilty of this crap. So when they tell us entitelments are to big, we need new taxes. Tell them spot your foreign aid frist!

I would support cuts in foreign aid if we reappropriated the money to purchase dictionaries for native-born English speakers.

**royce** · August-10-11, 04:14 AM

Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto

I would support cuts in foreign aid if we reappropriated the money to purchase dictionaries for native-born English speakers.

Ghettopalmetto, you get the gist of lit joe's argument. You don't have to be insensitve. Anyway, I too would like to know why the issue of eliminating aid to foreign countries wasn't on the table during the debt talks.

**Gannon** · August-10-11, 06:20 AM

Because a Corporate Capitalist Warocracy needs to either buy or conquer their so-called friends. Must be great friends indeed. I think Eric Clapton sang an old blues tune about this, Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out.

The Chinese launched their first aircraft carrier today.

Pretty soon...the World will no longer know us.

<sigh>

**Gannon** · August-10-11, 06:23 AM

And Lit Joe seems to suffer from typos rather than spelling issues...no worries. Communication is ALWAYS inexact. Nothing suffered from the interpolation necessary to understand.

But it IS good that his premise stands...until Meddle or one of the other contrarians wakes up and doses with their coffee.

Cheers

**gazhekwe** · August-10-11, 07:23 AM

I think the problem is, we want to maintain our position as a World Power. Part of what keeps us there is the handouts. We think, hope, assume, dictate, that the money will be used for things we are interested in, like Pakistan's military rooting out insurgency, Brazil supplying us with low cost fuel, and so on. Does it work? Should it be so high on our priority list that we starve our own country to do it?

**ghettopalmetto** · August-10-11, 08:11 AM

Originally Posted by royce

Ghettopalmetto, you get the gist of lit joe's argument. You don't have to be insensitve. Anyway, I too would like to know why the issue of eliminating aid to foreign countries wasn't on the table during the debt talks.

No, I don't get the gist of his argument. It's an emotional rant--and the lack of care in the writing shows that he was more concerned with perpetuating his faux rage than with taking the time to make a cohesive argument.

With that said, foreign aid is a very, very small fraction of federal spending--well less than 1%. There are many more areas where far more money is less well spent *ahem* tax cuts for the wealthy and needless wars.

Government is nothing more than what we as a society choose to do together. The logical extension of what the OP proposes is that all 310 million of us isolate ourselves onto little islands, not interacting socially or economically with each other or the rest of the world.

If lit joe is pissed about cuts to entitlement spending, perhaps he should use his noggin before voting for the Know-Nothings. Hindsight is always 20/20.

**firstandten** · August-10-11, 08:30 AM

It's part of the American Exceptionalism concept that's ingrained within our political culture. We spread Democracy thru out the world by using foreign aid thus furthering our influence and our interests.

I do think that countries should determine for self what kind of political and economic structure they want to have without the US influence via foriegn aid.

That is a discussion within itself, however I really don't think you can make a case like Lit Joe is trying to do that if you don't spend on foriegn aid then that would be more to spend on folks at home.

**ghettopalmetto** · August-10-11, 08:53 AM

This is what lit joe wants to cut, just so he can have a few more shekels to spend at Walmart:

We saw the answer as we listened to a grief-stricken mother of five, who had marched for 15 days across the parched Somali land to find food and security in a border camp. They arrived malnourished, sick and thirsty to a camp of 430,000 other refugees. They competed with 1,500 others who had made it to the camp that day, only to find it filled to capacity. Inside they would find adequate food and water.

They would find the vaccinations that are saving the lives of thousands. They would survive because of the generosity of Americans [[the U.S. is responsible for 47% of the food being provided) and increasingly because of members of the world community who are standing up, in spite of challenging times in their own communities.

More than 29,000 children have died over the past three months in what is the most acute food security emergency on Earth.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/08/1...iref=obnetwork

lit joe · August-10-11, 10:28 AM

Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto

I would support cuts in foreign aid if we reappropriated the money to purchase dictionaries for native-born English speakers.

I,m sorry I can't spell up to your standards but I was a product of Det.P.S.. Jefferson middle and northwestern high, where they wrapped chain around the door and padlock them at starting time. Now for the straving world, I seen it fristhand. Working as a A.B. seaman last run I made was for the world food bank to Java. We carried 183 thousand metric ton of soymeal plus 110 containers of rice
all from U.S. posts loaded and donated. We discharged in Jakrta they used local labor. To screw us out of money and provide good will.Thanks Seaman International Union. While sitting on the steps of the hard rock cafe downtown Jakrta I watched as mass of marching protestors bruning the America flag. I'm sure you watched on T.V as they ripped down the statue of little Barry [ Obama] because he didn't do enough for them. They don't deserve our help or will I ever for for the world food bank again. Enough is enough take care of your own.

**oladub** · August-10-11, 11:43 AM

http://www.bcps.org/offices/lis/mode...id/graphs.html

This link offers some statistics on US foreign aid as defined. Half of our foreign aid goes to military and other objectives in supposedly our own interest. There is also a thin line between such aid and the trillion dollar wars we fight to achieve the same aims that are not defined as foreign aid.

President Obama wrote a check the other day as our credit rating was being dropped for $105M to aid starving Somalians who have overpopulated their country. I don't mind the 33 cents that cost me. I would much rather spend to prevent starvation than to build bombs but I wonder how it is that the President can just write checks without Congress being involved. it is possible that Congress gives presidents a slush fund to spend for such things.

lit joe, Your spelling is poor but your sea story is eloquent. You make your point which is the essence of communication.

**Detroitnerd** · August-10-11, 11:57 AM

Jesus fucking christ, take the time to write coherently. Pidgin English is all well and good for sea shanties, but not for making a coherent argument about anything.

lit joe · August-10-11, 01:13 PM

Originally Posted by Detroitnerd

Jesus fucking christ, take the time to write coherently. Pidgin English is all well and good for sea shanties, but not for making a coherent argument about anything.

As all the liberal cry when they can't win the arguement.

**Papasito** · August-10-11, 01:16 PM

**ghettopalmetto** · August-10-11, 01:17 PM

Originally Posted by lit joe

As all the liberal cry when they can't win the arguement.

Look, son. You can't even spell. You can't even look words up in a dictionary or use SpellCheck. So let's not get too uppity about ourselves, shall we?

It's hard to take you the slightest bit seriously when you come off as sophomoric as you do. If you don't care enough to spell correctly, or write a coherent statement, then why would anyone care about anything running through your noggin?

This isn't some stupid football game where "My team is better than yours!". It's not about "winning" arguments to inflate your fragile ego. It's about reaching an understanding through developing an opinion based on FACTS. If that's too much for you to handle, you'd be better off reading books and learning rather than lecturing us in your broken English.

I'm only being a jerk because I think you have bigger worries than the Big Bad Gubmint--like learning how to write so that you might be EMPLOYABLE.

**Detroitnerd** · August-10-11, 01:25 PM

"Words never fail. We hear them, we read them; they enter into the mind and become part of us for as long as we shall live. Who speaks reason to his fellow men bestows it upon them. Who mouths inanity disorders thought for all who listen. There must be some minimum allowable dose of inanity beyond which the mind cannot remain reasonable. Irrationality, like buried chemical waste, sooner or later must seep into all the tissues of thought." --Richard Mitchell

**Jimaz** · August-10-11, 01:31 PM

This issue is a contrived distraction.

2007 U.S Federal Budget

Click that pie chart for the article that describes how that small sliver is further subdivided to a minuscule sliver representing actual development/humanitarian/emergency food aid.

There are much more important issues than this to discuss.

**old guy** · August-10-11, 01:35 PM

A lot of the foreign aid we ship out has a lot of strings attached to it. We're not really as generous as we seem. There are reasons for doling out cash.
The one I don't understand is why we send foreign aid, [[over 25 million annually) to China. We obviously have to borrow the money from them. So we can help them?

**rb336** · August-10-11, 01:46 PM

Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto

It's about reaching an understanding through developing an opinion based on FACTS.

When did facts start to matter again?

I do wish we would stop with foreign aid, esp. when it goes to despots in the middle east, africa and south/central america. If history is any guide, we end up creating our own frankenstein's monsters

**ghettopalmetto** · August-10-11, 01:56 PM

Originally Posted by rb336

When did facts start to matter again?

I do wish we would stop with foreign aid, esp. when it goes to despots in the middle east, africa and south/central america. If history is any guide, we end up creating our own frankenstein's monsters

I beg to disagree. If we all judged people based on who their political leaders are, we would have been written off by 2003 by most of Europe and Canada, if not outright invaded.

Nobody deserves to starve, no matter how despotic the leader of their country may be.

**rb336** · August-10-11, 02:03 PM

Originally Posted by ghettopalmetto

I beg to disagree. If we all judged people based on who their political leaders are, we would have been written off by 2003 by most of Europe and Canada, if not outright invaded.

Nobody deserves to starve, no matter how despotic the leader of their country may be.

The problem is that most of that gets siphoned off ala the marcos family, or diverted into police-state activities

**Detroitnerd** · August-10-11, 02:21 PM

Well, if you want to cut foreign aid, no recipient gets more money than Israel. That might be a good place to start.

Contact me when you get an audience with your senator about that.

**ghettopalmetto** · August-10-11, 02:38 PM

Originally Posted by Detroitnerd

Well, if you want to cut foreign aid, no recipient gets more money than Israel. That might be a good place to start.

Contact me when you get an audience with your senator about that.

I've always been curious about that, when there are ethnicities we don't "favor" who constitute much larger percentages of the US population. In other words, this arrangement is not merely because the US has a significant Jewish population.

Is it strictly political? Humanitarian? It doesn't seem that way--we certainly don't seem to be lecturing our Israeli friends when they launch mortars into Palestinian settlements. We give them money, they do whatever they want sans consequences.

Is it that we're the Good Guys, protecting ethnic minorities around the world? Hell, of course not. Rwanda, anyone? Liberia? Or even AT HOME???

Or is it that Jews are historically connected to moneyed and lawyerly interests, including politics? And that perhaps, they've managed to purchase quite a bit of influence over the years?

Nothing against Jews, per se. It just seems that they enjoy quite a favorable position when you consider the tiny size of the Jewish population both in Israel and the United States. You don't exactly see the United States dropping bales of money on 60 million Italians or 38 million Poles the way with do with a nation whose populace is equivalent to that of the Washington Metropolitan Area.

**Detroitnerd** · August-10-11, 03:33 PM

Look no further than AIPAC, the most-feared political lobby in Washington.

lit joe · August-10-11, 04:24 PM

Originally Posted by Jimaz

This issue is a contrived distraction.

2007 U.S Federal Budget

Click that pie chart for the article that describes how that small sliver is further subdivided to a minuscule sliver representing actual development/humanitarian/emergency food aid.

There are much more important issues than this to discuss.

That small sliver comes out to over 49 billion a year, I'd call that quite a bit.