have you ever wondered how much of our money goes to foreign governments?
As you know, each day I’ll feature a listener question that’s been submitted by one of these methods.
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Feel free to shoot away with your questions and I’ll do my best to keep up. Today’s question comes from Daniel:
Brian, Is there a place to find out how much of our tax dollars, Goes to central and South American countries? Even to other counties?
I think Trump has been the most transparent President ever. Seems Pelosi and Schumer care more about illegal immigrants than, American citizens. I know I'm not the only one person that thinks this. When there is someone that does violence with a gun. Dems run out for more gun control laws. But they will not build a wall, to save many more lives over. From drugs, violence, long list of things that would help keep Americans safe.
Bottom Line: It’s long been a point of contention with me that we’re busy handing out tens of billions per year around the world with little accountability while there are more than enough needs inside of the United States. According to the US State Department for the most recent year, 2017-2018, we spent $39.7 billion in direct foreign aid. That was handed out across more than 100 countries. Literally from Bangladesh through Zimbabwe we doled out money. Here’s how crazy and extensive our foreign aid assistance programs are around the world.
The smallest foreign aid assistance we provided was to Saudi Arabia. Yes, Saudi Arabia. We paid out $9,000 in aid deemed to be “Peace and Security”. Now here’s a potentially stupid question. What’s crazier, to pay Saudi Arabia foreign aid for anything in the first place or to quantify how much peace and security we can buy in Saudi Arabia for $9,000? Again, back to the accountability thing. Outside of me digging into the State Department budget who would ever find such a thing?
To your question about South and Central American countries. The easier way to answer the question is by the countries that didn’t receive foreign aid from the United States. In South America the only country we didn’t pay foreign aid to was Bolivia. Yes, last year, in the name of "Democracy" we paid foreign aid to Venezuela among others. How well was that money spent? Not to be entirely outdone in Venezuela we did the same thing in Cuba.
If you’re looking for a silver lining estimated spending is scheduled for this year is $27.7 billion in direct foreign aid. The least in many years. Ironically enough it’s far more than enough to build the entire wall on our southern border and then some. I suppose it’d be a rhetorical question to ask if you would prefer the wall over status quo foreign aid around the world.
How many members of Congress even know where our money goes, yet they vote for it anyway? This is just one more example of why I believe that it’s time to end the status quo of the federal government as we know it.
Photo by: SEBASTIAN D'SOUZA/AFP/Getty Images