Speaking on Fox News over the weekend, White House Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney confirmed plans for what he described as “fairly dramatic” reductions in US foreign aid spending in the upcoming 2018 budget.
Mulvaney said the idea was to spend less overseas and spend more domestically with the cuts, which are going to come out of both the State Department’s budget and USAID programs. Officials at the State Department say they believe they could see their budget cut as much as 37%.
While President Trump also talked up a $1 trillion increase in infrastructure spending at his most recent Congressional address, the cuts to foreign aid are likely to be only a fraction of the money sought just to pay for military spending increases. The combined State Department and USAID budgets are about $50 billion total, which even if it was cut to nothing is short of the $54 billion sought for military spending hikes.
Exactly where the cuts are going to come from remains to be seen, as certain large recipients of foreign aid, like Israel and Egypt, are almost certainly politically untouchable. USAID, on the other hand, may find themselves with less funding for bungled attempts at regime change.
‘USAID may find themselves with less funding for bungled
attempts at regime change…’
Illegal arms sales and drug trafficking will keep USAID in
the ‘Regime Change’ business with a few bucks to spare.
Likewise, Bibi doesn’t have to worry about Trump cutting
back on his welfare check.
There is only so much Trump can do to cut the gravy train of free money for contractors and subcontractors. And as it is, he is under attack. What do you think will happen if he tried to cut some aid to Israel and Egypt.
“Politically untouchable” Egypt and Israel are the problem. And Egypt only gets the money to bottle up the Gaza-Egypt border and contain the Palestinians in their miserable isolation. Why America sends money to an apartheid state like Israel is a lesson in corruption in our Government.
The reality of the situation is something quite different with Israel. It’s the proxy that legitimizes US presence in ME oil rich countries. Russia would take them off your hands if allowed to do so. A hiint of that was Israel/Netanyahu snuggling up to Russia/Putin during the Obama regime.
The US is not there to prop up Israel and help it to survive. No world power, small or large, is capable of moving on Israel and none even wish to.. The suggestion that Iran would is only US hawks promoting that illusion.
I agree with you on the Israel conundrum. Indeed, the US isn’t in the ME to prop the Zionist Entity up. However, Russia has lots of oil and natural gas, so it doesn’t need to take the oil rich countries there from the US. On the other hand, Russia does have interests in the region, which isn’t too far; whereas, the US is some 6,000 miles away; yet, it invaded Iraq and Libya (Afghanistan’s located in Central Asia) and tried with Syria.
As for any world power, small or large, moving on Israel, that’s partially true. Iran’s missiles are accurate enough to hit its nuclear weapons facilities at Dimona, turning the Zionist Entity into one large glass parking lot. In addition, Iran’s now equipped with S-300 missile defense systems, courtesy of Russia.
You speak with forked tongue. Israel is a special case of our own foreign policy. Not only to legitimize presence in ME.
Foreign aid is money sent from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries . I guess both Georgia and Ukraine received about 5 billion dollars didn’t seem to help them much ,might have caused them both more harm than good .
For your country, it’s money well spent eric. Russia stands in the way of US progress on the outstanding countries named in the PNAC agenda. Georgia and Ukraine are directly linked.
Maybe some day you will become capable of understanding that and then you will be able to discuss reality.
Don, Eric’s right. It’s you who doesn’t understand the links between Georgia and Ukraine and the outstanding nations named in the PNAC agenda.
Russia’s not standing in the way of US progress in that region, it’s only looking out for its own interests there. The PNAC agenda’s an evil one, meant to enslave the entire world. It’s that agenda that Russia’s blocking, and rightfully so.
Do you really believe Georgia and Ukraine benefited from those $5 billion? Certainly, the oligarchs who took over them did, but their populations didn’t.
So, PNAC agenda is the what we the plebes are not capable of understanding? So, money is well spent to prevent Russia from interfering with the benevolent hegemony, and Georgia and Ukraine are so important in that endeavor? How ARROGANT OF YOU. No wonder you dislike Trump, and his objective of ending anti-Russia policy. Because we in US and Russia seem to have the same enemy, PNAC and its imperial globalist cabal.
The money is NEVER WELL SPENT ON INTERFEREING IN OTHER COUNTRIES LIVES. Only imperial delusions can justify something this vile.
I’d be delighted to see less money going to the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID which are said to be deeply engaged in regime destabilization and change operations.
Recently, an political writer and author whose name I can recall mentioned that the U.S. regime change operations over time often had questionable outcomes. He cited Iran as a glaring example.
And, he said that the U.S. would do better to consider the outcome of “which horse it backed as the horses often go wild and backing them often results in fecal contamination.” Graphic? Yep. Accurate, all too often yes.
LF
At present, an ugly one shaping in Macedonia.
I love the posters on this board and I agree. This would be a welcome development, it would promote peace, less money for color revolutions. If anyone doubts this just look at Lindsey Graham’s reaction when he referred to the State Dept’s budget as ‘soft power’. Oh, and look for less White Helmet videos as their media budget gets cut, another plus.
But what on earth are we going to do with keeping guard 24-7-365 for years on end to protect Churches and Monasteries in Kosovo, from our staunch allies, Kosovo Albanians? I hear that the suggestion is to form Kosovo army (against UN Resolution 1244), to guard the sites. These are the remaining sites, the ones on UNESCO list of protected heritage. Here is a suggestion. Since Trump will probably not be allowed to help any endangered Christian population or historic sites, perhaps we can just let our friends and staunch allies, Albanians, just destroy it all — they destroyed already over 100, and kicked out over 250,000 Christian people. So, once destroyed, no need to worry about keeping them under guard, so our friends will not commit crimes in their justified rage — having to hear church bells polluting their environment. Yes, many a good thing we created with our “soft” money, Our money paid for the enormous statue of Bill Clinton in the main square of Pristina. And to keep them civilized, we keep a base there, Camp Bondsteel. And we spent untold hundreds of billions over all these years, and billions more on our diplomatic efforts in UN, EU, and all around the world, to push for the recognition of this “young democracy”. How much money have we spent to secure secession of South Sudan from Sudan. And what do we have there? And ugly civil war, with countless innocent victims. And what do we have in neighboring Uganda? A brutal ruler ( do not use that word lightly as our media does), who put his own population in camps “for their protection” where they are abused, kept hungry, dying from diseases. Ah, Uganda, The place were Bill Clinton kept a military base of Ugandan and Rwandan mercenaries, and from where the attack started to topple the legitimately elected president of Rwanda. Rwanda’s majority, Hutu, were not allowed to elect a Hutu president, and his plane was shot down, and country thrown into a civil war. Majority of all victims were Hutu, an unarmed peasants, against a well armed Tutsi, supported by Ugandan mercenaries, and US trained military. But the propaganda claimed that it was Tutsis to have been victims of genocide, even though if the numbers offered were correct, Tutsis should have been dead three times the number of their total population., Instead, Hutus were driven to jungles, and into refugee camps in Congo, that became death camps. A Belgian filmmaker recorded the disposal of dead Hutus, by the bulldozers. And cried for humanity. Nothing stopped Bill Clinton to claim that he did not know what is going on, and cried how he failed to stop it. Stop what? He should have stopped lying to start with. The lie that declared Tutsis victims, and Hutus the genocidal killers. While, until today, the hand picked Clinton man, was transported from US military base into Uganda, committed all these atrocities, and until today, rules Rwanda. He is the darling of European and US circles, the enlightened one, the one talking about genocide against Tutsis! All that so the French can be kicked out of Rwanda and then, in a blood soaked trail, out of Congo as well. This, as well as Bosnian “genocide: are still the myths we perpetuate, as our soft power made sure MSM portrays the world as we wish.
Lindsey Graham needs to see the real world. His imperial vision is clouded by delusions.
Foreign aid isn’t the problem but it’s certainly going to appeal to Trump’s supporters as the solution. It’s the Trump con written big and bold. And it’s as wrong as his other effort to accomplish roughly the same thing. Building a wall.
Some day Americans will start thinking in terms of socially responsible capitalism as opposed to greedy, never trickle down capitalism. And it will even very likely capture the hearts and minds of the libertarians too.
Don, after you’ve fixed your own whacked-out Canada, then come tell us how to run our country. Until then, STFU. Please.
Stick it where the sun don’t shine sonny Jim. This is my business and the world’s business more than it’s yours. “You” people are too propagandized by your warmongering gov to do anything positive about the problems.
No Don, you are not the one telling people in US that change in foreign policy is not what we wanted when electing Trump. Well, leave us then to our devices. You are the one now DEFENDING the warmongering USAID program that is used to pay corrupt elites around the world, and subsidize regime changes.
You are the one to really stop talking about something you have NO CLUE. Let me enlighten you. I worked for UN in many countries, including the now destroyed Yemen, and in every country I saw what happened to USAID. All the aid in food that came in the form of sacks of sugar, rice or flower, and cans of oil, had on them a large sign “NOT TO BE SOLD OF EXCHANGED”. All of them where given to local power elite, and all of them were on the shelves of grocery stores. I bought them regularly for two years of my stay in Yemen. This is what our HELP does. TIME TO END THE LIES. Corruption ends when we stop feeding it.
“You” people are too propagandized by your warmongering gov…
Don, I agree with your statement above and respect your opinion.
It has been an uphill struggle for individuals like myself who believe in educating ‘us’ masses ‘not’ to accept the bullshit ‘we’ get from the corporate MSM which is the mouthpiece for the Pentagon.
Those of ‘us’ who didn’t drink the Kool-aid and believe the lies the Bush cabal and Pentagon concocted and parroted by the MSM were demonized during the runup to the so- called ‘Operation Iraqi freedom’.
I was labeled anti-American because I didn’t buy into the garbage Powell dished out to the UN. Saddam Hussein had NO WMDs, mobile biological weapons labs, nor did he sought to obtain uranium from the African country of Niger. The Bush cabal knew the accusations were bullshit, however, it knew if the MSM kept regurgitating these lies enough, the gullible USG public would believe it.
Iraq is in complete shambles. Bush’s ‘Operation Iraqi freedom’ slaughtered 1 million Iraqis, displaced millions, polluted their environment with depleted uranium, white phosphorus, and is directly responsible for the carnage and secular violence that continues to this day.
Don, I don’t support violence or ‘terrorism’. I support change through educating a gullible USG society. The corporate MSM is a powerful foe with an ability to shape the opinion of millions of Americans. However, with help of independent media sources like KPFA and AntiWar.com, ‘us’ masses don’t have to drink the Kool-aid. Especially our young people the Pentagon will use for fodder in its global wars for profit.
The majority of “Friends” the USA has in the world are bought with AID.
Americans will soon find they are unwelcome in allot more countries.
Better not touch that Israeli gift.