Foreign aid is the exchange of goods, funds, and services from one nation to another. America has a long history of providing aid to foreign countries, and American’s have a long history of questioning it. In the United States, many citizens, cannot justify the idea of sending our money to other countries. Opponents of foreign aid say aid is, “being wasted, used to support dictators, or being spirited away to Swiss bank accounts” (Sachs pg.39). Others feel that the money is better spent here at home. The concerns of those who oppose foreign aid are valid, but somewhat misguided. Foreign Aid does help the community, the majority of it goes to those in need, and American can afford to continue to spend the tiny percent of its budget
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Those people are most often misinformed. The Kaiser Family Foundation “polled 1,505 people. Only 1 in 20 knew the right answer: less than 1 percent of the $4 trillion federal budget goes to foreign aid” (Rutsch). The foreign Aid budgeted for 2016 is 33 billion dollars, most of those polls believed it to me closer to 25 times that much. While, 33 billion certainly sounds like a lot of money, in truth its only 0.19% of Americas GDP, far less than the 0.7 percent promised by 22 wealthy nations to the Official Development Assistance in 1970(OECD). Of the 22 nations who made the 0.7 percent commitment to help end poverty, the United States, gives the smallest percent. Of those who took the Kaiser poll, 56% thought we over spent on foreign aid based on their own guess, once they were given the correct numbers, only 28%, still believed we over spend (Rutsch). In reality, “foreign aid is an insignificant part of the federal budget and is not worth sacrificing if America wishes to retain its image of benevolence and moral certitude” (Sterns). America does not have the best reputation in the world community as great humanitarians, so surely “at a time when our politicians are considering how to cut as much as $1,500 billion from the federal budget we shouldn't try to cut the $16 billion we spend annually to assist the victims of malaria, famine, or natural disasters.” The reality is that the amount we give to foreign aid is not what causes our country’s financial problems, and the 1% of our budget it cost us, it easily makes up for in foreign
Those people are most often misinformed. The Kaiser Family Foundation “polled 1,505 people. Only 1 in 20 knew the right answer: less than 1 percent of the $4 trillion federal budget goes to foreign aid” (Rutsch). The foreign Aid budgeted for 2016 is 33 billion dollars, most of those polls believed it to me closer to 25 times that much. While, 33 billion certainly sounds like a lot of money, in truth its only 0.19% of Americas GDP, far less than the 0.7 percent promised by 22 wealthy nations to the Official Development Assistance in 1970(OECD). Of the 22 nations who made the 0.7 percent commitment to help end poverty, the United States, gives the smallest percent. Of those who took the Kaiser poll, 56% thought we over spent on foreign aid based on their own guess, once they were given the correct numbers, only 28%, still believed we over spend (Rutsch). In reality, “foreign aid is an insignificant part of the federal budget and is not worth sacrificing if America wishes to retain its image of benevolence and moral certitude” (Sterns). America does not have the best reputation in the world community as great humanitarians, so surely “at a time when our politicians are considering how to cut as much as $1,500 billion from the federal budget we shouldn't try to cut the $16 billion we spend annually to assist the victims of malaria, famine, or natural disasters.” The reality is that the amount we give to foreign aid is not what causes our country’s financial problems, and the 1% of our budget it cost us, it easily makes up for in foreign