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True. Same with sending financial aid to any other country.
I consider that under the umbrella of "maintaining a global empire". The US government isn't pouring dizzying sums of money into foreign countries because they're such nice guys.
I think we all know of people personally that if they were given a million bucks and education on how to make it last it would still be gone next week with nothing to show for it.
It seems like many think that capitalism is a bad thing. Bernie Sanders wants to dismantle Wall Street. Big business makes America work.
...
Yah, there are people who seem to be wastrels. No matter what you put into their hands, it's gone. Which is one reason I'd prefer to see educational assistance be precisely that - tuition paid, help with textbooks, as long as the grades are kept up (a B minimum? We can set what the minimum expectation is.)
As for making the US (I assume) work - how did that work before there was Big Business in the US (I figure we're talking the railroad, steel, coal, oil, telegraph & etc. combines). Those didn't come about until the Civil War, as I recall. Did the US not work up until then? & if it did, & if Big Business wasn't around @ that time - Who was doing all the work?
Define economic powerhouse? China has grown the fastest in history since 2000 and it has done it with mostly a command style economy. Some of you folks need to take off your star spangled glasses and realize the world is fluid.
Has nothing to do with deadbeats with their hands perpetually outstretched demanding more free stuff.
Yeah, well stop spending billions of not trillions trying to fix every nation around the world first...
Then we can talk about what's spent on Americans.
Most US foreign aid is military - which means that the recipient country gets credits, which it has to spend on US hardware. That's how Egypt, for instance, has M1A tanks, Humvees, arty, Strykers (?), F-16s, F-15s & etc. A further stipulation in transporting the goods is that they have to be shipped in US hulls (that may have changed by now). Food & development aid is similar - countries get credits, which they can spend for food & services from US suppliers.
Relatively little money is spent by US gov. outside of these channels. The US-based NGOs now - that's a different story. But official US foreign aid isn't much (as a % of the total US budget), & it mostly goes to the US military-industrial-Congressional money/patronage machine. See
National insecurity : the cost of American militarism / Melvin A.Goodman, 1938- c2013, City Lights Books, San Francisco
American militarism, costs and consequences -- President Eisenhower's legacy -- George H.W. Bush's New World Order -- Clinton's problems with the Pentagon -- Bush's surrender to the Pentagon -- President Obama's deference to the military -- The Pentagon's grip on the intelligence community -- The Pentagon's phantom missile defense -- Defense spending: Eisenhower's "cross of iron" -- What needs to be done.[SIZE=3][/SIZE]
Length
461 pages ; index, chapter notes. No photos nor maps.[SIZE
Very good on the politicization of intelligence (CIA), & then the militarization of intelligence, foreign policy (to the detriment of nuclear arms control & anti-proliferation, USIA - the dismantling of the two under B. Clinton) even as budget constraints & poor foreign policy decisions strain our ability to project military power into Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. An excellent read from a long time professional intel insider.
LOL @ "rich kid leaves the house and gets a Pell Grant". I can tell you right now, it does not work that way. Aid is based on parental income. Even though I was independent and did everything I could to declare that I had no support from my parents (which was true), I still got denied. Your parents pretty much have to be dead, or you have to marry or have a baby, in order to be judged independently before the age of 26. I was 17 at the time.
What's more accurate is that financially well-to-do families generally help out themselves. So you're right the kids get an advantage that way. But the burden isn't on the taxpayers.
I got financial aid at 22, I just had to have my own address and not live with my parents. After I was on my own, paying my own rent and bills they judged me independent. My parent's income never came into question.
Has nothing to do with deadbeats with their hands perpetually outstretched demanding more free stuff.
Well, it is what it is, and the American form of government allows it, and will allow
more of it, as the voting population changes demographically to reflect the booming
population of welfare recipients.
Nothing can be done about this, without a suspension of democratic representation.
Americans who spend all their time trying to make more money don't have as many
children. Americans who have children while poor learn that they can have children
and work less.
To some, kids are a high expense. To others, they are a financial blessing.
It's over. Sure, some states are less generous, but the trend is toward
a collectivized system which takes care of everyone. This cannot be
defeated electorally because the demographics are shifting.
Even the Republican front-runner does not advocate any cuts in welfare
or state-sponsored entitlements.
You won't see someone who does win another election in the US.
Is it any coincidence that as we move towards a more technological that we increase handouts? In a span of two hundreds we have gone from an agrarian society to an industrialized one.
The ignorant and clueless will complain about deadbeats but they are narrowly focused and lack the perspective to see the forest through the trees.
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Call the question
