Looting the Taxpayer: Government-Directed Foreign Aid Sylvia Bokor American taxpayers are being forced to give billions

of their money to foreign c ountries. It is called foreign aid, economic assistance, and military assistance . About half of the money is channeled through the United States Agency ational Development (USAID). In 2006, the staff numbered 1,759. One assume that each employee is paid a minimum of $50,000 a year, which the U.S. government gives a minimum of $87,950,000 of taxpayer money rats whose job it is to give taxpayer money to foreign countries. for Intern can fairly means that to bureauc

Almost 88 million dollars? Peanuts compared to the vast amounts of taxpayer mone y Americans are forced to give away without interest. A summary table of all For eign Assistance from 1946 to 2009 can be found on the Greenbook web site [1]. Our giveaways following World War II were understandable. But as nations recover ed, our foreign aid continued---sometimes by a little, sometimes by a lot. Betw een then and now the amount of giveaways has quadrupled. In the past three year s, the amounts have literally gone out of sight. The number of countries rose a lso. Today American taxpayer money is given to 189 countries. A December 2008 article entitled "Who gets U.S. Foreign Aid?" Parade Magazine re ported, "The U.S. will give an estimated $26 billion in foreign aid in 2008-70% more than when President George W. Bush took office (the figure doesn't include funds related to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan)."[2] In fiscal year 2009, total economic and military assistance to foreign governmen ts rose to $47.7 billion.[3] Starting in 2008, amounts given to 16 countries were no longer disclosed.[4] By 2010, finding foreign aid figures became very difficult. The database for some references is named "Loans & Grants." But U.S. foreign ai d is given to countries. It is not a loan, not a grant, but an outright gift wit hout a penny of interest. To Pakistan, for instance, American taxpayers were forced to give $798 million. In addition, $330 million was given for security efforts, military-equipment up grade and border security, and $20 million for infrastructure. As we watch our own bridges collapse and our own roads heaved up by hurricanes, we know, of cour se that we do not need such things. But Pakistan does---a nation whose leadersh ip looks the other way when terrorists use it as a jumping off place to attack U .S. troops and concealed the presence of Osama ben Laden, a criminal they knew w e were hunting. Even so, Pakistan was given nearly $1 billion in 2009. Some un confirmed reports claim it has been given at least $3 billion in 2011.

To Egypt, American taxpayers were forced to give $1.7 billion to promote "civic participation," buy weapons and increase health care. "Civic participation" in a dictatorship? To Jordan, American taxpayers were forced to give $688 million. In addition, $3

26 million to fight terrorism, promote stability, equipment upgrades & training. Plus, $163 million cash to the Jordanian government. And so it goes, the American taxpayer was forced to give Mexico, Colombia, Niger ia, Sudan, for instance, around a half a billion each. The amounts American taxp ayers were forced to give to the remaining 182 nations in 2009 ranged as high as over $8.6 billion for Afghanistan, $6 billion for Iraq to a quarter of a billio n ($285.50 million) for Zimbabwe.[5] Such looting of American taxpayers takes top prize for the audacity to con the A merican taxpayer and the hope to get away with it. While it was widely known---thanks to the so-called "budget talks"---that the U. S. Government had reached a borrowing limit of $14.3 trillion, it was not as wid ely known that having reached that limit the Administration had gone into debt. In debt? How could we be in debt when the government has all that money they've looted from taxpayers to give away? A common sense question with a not-so-sens ible answer. The news broke on May 31, 2011. On that date, the Congressional Research Servic e released its report and on June 3, 2011 a British newspaper, the Daily Mail Re porter, put it succinctly: "The U.S. Government borrows back at interest the mon ey it gave away" [6]. Fox News put it concisely, too: "The U. S. government is providing hundreds of millions of dollars of foreign aid to countries that it b orrows billions from" [7]. This lunacy should be grounds for immediately terminating the employment of thos e that approved such iniquitous practices---namely the Obama Gang that includes State Department key personnel. But the Obama Gang declares that "taxes must be raised," that "rich Americans ar e greedy and must give more," that the "top 1%" are not paying their fair share. " This is the biggest lie perpetrated upon the American people and one of the mo st insidious. It is undermining the fabric of our prosperity, our national unity and, most importantly, the ambition of both young and established careers. In s hort, the Obama Gang is poisoning the ambition of our most productive and is squ andering the values they produce. It is not merely a mistake to prop up dictatorships. It is immoral. It is not si mply fuzzy thinking to support those who backstab us. It is irrational. Those ci tizens living under oppressive governments are not going to become prosperous wh ile they are oppressed. Those individuals living in countries wherein half the population is denied education and the other half is kept impoverished never to aspire beyond barest necessity are not going to become educated or ambitious by giving their leaders American taxpayer money. One should fault politicians for their continuing violation of individual rights , for their strangling of American business and for their proclivity to grow gov ernment bigger and bigger. Those faults---not Wall Street, not investors, or co rporations or banks---are the deepest cause of the present cultural and economic malaise. This situation includes, according to a 60 Minutes report on November 27, 2011, "More than 16 million [American] children are now living in poverty a nd, for many of them . . . face an even more desperate choice: living in their c ars . . . ." [8] while billions of taxpayer money is poured into the pockets of leaders of foreign countries. Anger need not be one's only reaction to this travesty of reason. A full commitm ent is also needed---a full and total commitment to rid our nation of this compl etely irrational Obama Gang.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------References: 1. http://gbk.eads.usaidallnet.gov/about/program_summary.pdf 2. http://www.parade.com/news/intelligence-report/archive/who-gets-us-foreign-ai d.html Estimates based on figures and documents from the U.S. Department of Sta te --- Rebecca Davis O'Brien. 3. http://gbk.eads.usaidallnet.gov/data/fast-facts.html 4. http://www.vaughns-1-pagers.com/politics/us-foreign-aid.htm 5. U.S. Overseas Loans and Grants, U.S. Bureau of Census (BUCEN) International D atabase, from a chart shown on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid 6. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1393960/US-gives-billions-foreign-ai d-worlds-richest- countries-asks-borrow-back.html 7. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/06/02/us-offers-foreign-aid-to-countries -holding-billions-in-treasury-securities/ 8. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57330802/hard-times-generation-families -living-in-cars/ ====###====