Abolishing the Foreign Aid Policy

The other day a random stranger came up to me and asked for $5 in order for him to like me. I gave him the $5 because I don't like the feeling of someone not liking me and I'm afraid of the possible outcomes if I don't give him the $5. Does that sound familiar? It should, that's our current Foreign Aid Policy. We buy "niceness."

I think this begs the question, what good is foreign aid. Not good if we consider the fact that it promotes reckless fiscal policies because foreign nations know they will be bailed out by other foreign nations. It's like having a credit card that's paid for by our parents. Do we really care what we buy with it? Of course not, especially when our dad is Bill Gates. Giving money to foreign nations is definitely not good when that money goes to the coffers of corrupt government bureaucrats, like most Asian and African nations, and to despots like the former Saddam Hussein and former Yasser Arafat. It's also not a good idea when we're trying to pay people to like us. Rather, we should recognize that people will hate us for whatever reason, especially since we're better than them. Rather than squander tax payers' monies trying to make foreign nations like us, we should allow the tax payers to invest the money into their businesses or purchase goods, both of which promote a stronger economy, and make us that much better than those that hate us.

The U.S. is projected to spend over $34.3 Billion (according to State Department budget from 2007). How much of that is actually needed to maintain foreign consulates and embassies? How much of that is aid? $1.2 Billion appears to be needed for the consulates and embassies, the rest is purely choice. Do we really need to spend $33.1 Billion on programs or other aid to make other countries like us or hate us less? How about we use that to pay off some of the Federal Reserve Debt in our efforts to abolish the Federal Reserve. We only need $8.47 Trillion more.