When Texas Governor and GOP Presidential hopeful Rick Perry
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sticks his foot in his mouth he manages to include everything from toes to heel. His gaffes and awkwardness on the debate stage have made him look more like a buffoon than the highly successful three term Governor of our nations 2nd largest state. But Saturday in the CBS debate he let rip an idea whose time has come. A foreign aid budget that starts at zero every year and requires any nation, including Israel, to make their case for that which the United States gives them.
The United States gave somewhere in the neighborhood of $26-billion in foreign aid this year. And they’ll give more next year. Such is the nature of Washington. Increases are just done; period. No reason…just because. Israel is the largest recipient at over $3.1-billion; Egypt gets over $1.5- billion. The payoffs to these two countries coming as a result of the
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Camp David Accords of the Jimmy Carter presidency. Essentially we’re paying these two rich countries not to fight one another.
Interesting that our next door neighbor, Mexico, gets only $300-million dollars in Federal aid though they’re a poor nation with lots of people shooting at one another.
But Perry’s point was seconded by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
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who probably did a better job of explaining Perry’s idea than did Perry.
The best example of why we should ask countries to come in every year and make their case for what foreign aid we provide is Pakistan. This Muslim Country on the Indian Ocean gets nearly a billion dollars a year of our hard-earned and hard paid tax dollars. And yet, they harbor terrorists that kill Americans. “Come back next year, Pakistan”, is what I’d say. You want more money earn it. Otherwise “kiss my budget”.
Foreign aid only amounts to 1% of the Federal budget. But when we’re trying to cut expenses and aide to fellow Americans is being slashed drastically, foreign nations, especially those who don’t like us much, can wait in the back of the line.
And while we’re on the subject, why not start at a zero sum budget for MOST of our Federal programs? It’s our money. We should decide how we spend it, and not let that decision be based solely on what someone else started years ago.
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M Schuett blah blah blah 