January 31, 2017

End the Foreign-Aid Racket

Donald Trump’s wise and humanitarian move to reinstate the Reagan-era “Mexico City policy,” which prohibits U.S. foreign-aid dollars from going to non-government organizations that perform or provide referrals for abortions, has incited a torrent of liberal outrage.

Donald Trump’s wise and humanitarian move to reinstate the Reagan-era “Mexico City policy,” which prohibits U.S. foreign-aid dollars from going to non-government organizations that perform or provide referrals for abortions, has incited a torrent of liberal outrage.

Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire seethed that the edict “(favors) ideological politics over women and families.” Yet she favors a policy that requires Americans to fund activities they find morally offensive. So much for “pro-choice.”

The restoration of the Mexico City policy is a great start, but Trump should take a much bolder step: Stop all non-emergency foreign aid now. Virtually every poll of the last two decades shows that voters hate foreign aid, for good reason. The programs don’t work to bring development to Nigeria or Mexico City anymore than domestic-aid programs have revived inner-city Detroit or Milwaukee.

Why are American taxpayers funding birth control or, for that matter, any overseas family-planning programs in foreign countries? We can’t even afford our own government health programs, yet we are supposed to fund condom-distribution programs in Asia and Africa?

Foreign aid, when including military aid, costs up to $50 billion a year. Liberals say this is a trivial amount given that the entire federal budget exceeds $4 trillion. How is $500 billion over a decade trivial?

One of the world’s experts on foreign aid is William Easterly, an economist at New York University. He has noted that the developed countries could save as many as 5 million deaths from malaria and other preventable infectious diseases at a cost of less than $5 per life saved. This would simply require bed netting and cheap medicines. But it doesn’t happen.

Meanwhile, Easterly notes, the Western world spent almost 25 times this amount — over $2 trillion from 1950 to 2000 — on foreign aid. And what did it buy for all this spending? As Easterly puts it: “The West spent $2.3 trillion and still had not managed to get $4 bed nets to poor families.” This is almost an inhumanely irresponsible misallocation of taxpayer dollars.

Or think about this: According to the Cato Institute, “Since the 1960s, sub-Saharan Africa has received nearly $500 billion in aid, yet the region has become poorer in the past several decades.” The Cato Institute’s analysis found that aid spending in Africa is negatively correlated with development.

Why do these programs so tragically fail? One reason is that the money flows through organizations and advocacy groups that are often hostile to free enterprise. Government bureaucrats are the problem, not the solution, in poor nations. They are corrupt and intercept money and spend it on themselves. The West put tens of billions of dollars behind Millennium Development Grants to try to bring economic development to the former Soviet Union nations, but the aid had almost no effect in bringing prosperity.

Just as the welfare state here at home has created cycles of poverty in families, aid abroad fosters dependency, not self-sufficiency. Local initiatives don’t take shape, because the attitude is that the foreigners will take care of the busted pipe or the downed power lines.

How did India and China and other Asian Tiger nations develop so quickly? As the Heritage Foundation’s Index of Economic Freedom points out, they moved to free-market economics at a rapid pace and shed governmental controls. To paraphrase Heritage Foundation economist Anthony Kim: These nations privatized state-owned enterprises, encouraged entrepreneurship and cut taxes and red tape.

America should be exporting sound economic ideas — free-market capitalism — not taxpayer dollars. It’s time to stop funding the vast foreign-aid empire that has gotten rich off of other people’s misery.

If the returns for certain aid programs are as positive for women across the globe as Sen. Shaheen and others think they are, then surely there are millionaire donors who will pick up the tab for groups such as Planned Parenthood. But let’s see if any of these programs can pass a market test and persuade charitable donors to fund their activities. The left would rather lobby Congress. Maybe that is because there is no real value — and these programs do more harm than good.

The best way to promote prosperity abroad is to fix America’s problems first. Then we can serve as a beacon of freedom and opportunity for nations around the globe. If we lead, the rest of the world will follow.

COPYRIGHT 2017 CREATORS.COM

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.