Foreign aid: More than charity.

With an economy on the mend and a deficit which is shrinking more slowly than most of us would like, we often question whether certain government expenditures are worthwhile. One of the most scrutinized parts of our budget is perhaps the estimated $58 billion we spend annually on foreign aid. To many critics, spending this amount of money on the development of foreign nations seems fiscally irresponsible, especially when we face so many domestic challenges here at home. Foreign aid, however, is possibly one of most misunderstood investments of the U.S., because its goals are complex and its benefits are difficult to quantify.

What the general public often fails to realize is that the United States does not have a foreign aid program solely for the purpose of being charitable. Allocating funds to developing countries is a foreign policy strategy that is important for both the U.S. economy and national security. Foreign assistance funds are dispersed among many nations and applied to promoting peace, security, democracy, good governance, economic development, education, human rights, health, etc. Not only does this create a positive image of the United States as a global leader and improve international relations,  but it also gives us the opportunity to instill strong values into the framework of growing nations. Through foreign aid, we aim to create stability in developing countries so that they may learn to utilize democratic practices, form steady economic foundations, protect themselves from attacks, and become leaders in their regions. Though it is nearly impossible to form an exact measurement of the positive outcomes that can be attributed to foreign aid, it is clear that it is in our interest to play a role in aiding nations as they determine their identities. The rise of strong countries around the world does not weaken the United States, but grants us allies in national security and partners in trade. The emergence of well-educated, healthy, and humane societies prevents war and grows the global economy, and a thriving global economy means a strong national economy.

Developing countries excluding Least Developed Countries (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

Faced with budget crisis, we are forced to examine our priorities as a nation. Many Americans may believe that humanitarian reasons are enough to justify foreign aid, and that if the U.S. is the “leader of the free world,” it is our duty to provide leadership to the rest of the world.  Fortunately for skeptics, consideration of the economic and security benefits of foreign aid reveals that it is also a strategic and useful part of our budget. Without assistance from developed countries like the U.S., it is likely that many unstable countries in which we seek to promote democracy, peace, and a strong economy would collapse into chaos, costing us much more money when we are forced to pick up the pieces. If our long-term goal is to improve our economy and reduce spending, cutting a program that makes up 1% of our budget is not worth the risk of being forced to spend more on future security/war expenditures or economic recovery. By offering leadership and assistance in the form of global foreign aid, we help decide the future not only for other nations, but for our own.

Democratic Socialism: Insult or Identity?

In the past five years, “socialism” has become a dirty word.  However, forms of socialism have always existed in our society.

Here is just a short list of things that we pay for through taxes, therefore benefiting from democratic socialism:

• Public schools and universities
• Police and fire departments
• The largest military in the world
• Roads and bridges
• Public libraries and parks
• Medical research
• Food inspection
• Personal, student, and business loans
• Public water supplies and sewage treatments
• Trash collection
• The postal service
• Social security and medicare
• And much more.

While we in the United States tend embrace a more individualistic culture than most other developed countries, socialism is not evil, nor is it the same thing as communism or fascism.  Therefore, calling Barack Obama a socialist is not truly as much of an insult as it is often intended to be. Ironically, however, the policies of President Obama are not actually any more fundamentally “socialist” than those of any other president in U.S. history. In fact, while many people claim that Obama is a socialist because he has raised taxes, tax rates under President Obama are actually lower than under any other president since at least 1900, with the exceptions of only George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Herbert Hoover (whose presidency preceded the Great Depression). We need to educate ourselves and learn from history rather than name-calling and making words like “socialism” dirty, when in reality democratic socialism has always been the American way.