Uncle Sucker

My dear older brother recently reminded me that our late father -- yes, the same one about whom I just wrote as having voted Democrat his whole life, the best we know -- had pretty strong opinions about foreign aid.

The opinions were not exactly positive.

Dad would say that the government here in the USA was an incredible source of waste, both abroad and here at home.  He decried wasted money anywhere, but I believe that while wasted money here was bad enough, and that between fraud and incompetence in the bureaucracy, which was a pile, it was where it came to foreign aid that he really got steamed.

And even though I don't yell nor do I ever swear, I can assure you I didn't get my disposition from Dad.  He could get steamed pretty well, though not often.  Swore he was not Irish, mind you, but he sure shared a lot of habits with the Hibernians.

Let me tell you, he was not a fan of sending aid to foreign countries.  Certainly he understood where it was a charitable situation; disaster aid like the Haiti earthquake relief, or where there were countries who were strategically important to the USA, the places where we -- Americans -- could decide that our taxpayer dollars could be provided in a way that ultimately benefited us, those who provided them.

But Dad had no desire to countenance frauds, and that is where he ultimately decided that foreign aid had turned into an open-wallet policy there to be abused by the rest of the world.  He was, after all, a combination of fiscal conservatism and utter contempt for frauds.  And he saw foreign aid as having gotten to the point where it seemed that anyone who asked got it, and our own priorities had nothing to do with it.

For example, if you extract the military assistance out of the equation -- and I think that is probably reasonably fair, given that military assistance is generally provided to countries out of our own self-interest rather than extortion or corruption by the receiving nation -- you might be a bit surprised to see who is getting aid from us.

The Number One recipient of non-military aid from the USA taxpayers, by a factor of three over the number two recipient, is Afghanistan.  That is $2.6 billion (with a "b") to Afghanistan, which Barack Obama swore when running for president that he would get us out of.

Want to know the next few on the list?  Well, numbers two through eight are Jordan, Ethiopia, South Sudan (which didn't even exist three years ago), Malawi (surely you've heard of Malawi), Uganda, South Africa and Nigeria.

I realize the strategic nature of our relationship with Jordan, at least the strategic relationship we would have if we had an actual president with a spine and a clue, rather than a pen and a phone. I get that.  But what on God's green earth are we doing sending a total of $3.4 billion (with a "b") which we have to borrow from China to send, to the other countries in 2013, the latest year I could find quickly?

By the way, can you tell me who you think #9 on that other list of greatest receivers of U.S. taxpayer dollars actually borrowed from China is?  That would be the $445 million that -- get this -- we borrowed from China to give to Russia.  How's that?  We borrow almost half a billion from one country trying to ruin us and give it to another country trying to ruin us.

Dad would say "It isn't that we're Uncle Sam -- we're "Uncle Sucker."  And I think he was exactly right.  The only reason we are giving aid to many of those countries is that they ask for it, and we are unwilling to provide the fiscal responsibility, the accountability by the recipients, the proper auditing of its use and the willingness to protect the exposure of the American taxpayer, whom this Government simply does not respect.  We are unwilling to be seen as other than generous, and accordingly are taken advantage of, over and over and over.

We are "Uncle Sucker", and though excessive foreign aid greatly preceded the current administration and truly does represent a relatively small part of the bloated Federal budget (think $50 billion out of a $2-3 trillion budget), it is, a Dad would also say, the principle of the thing.

Mitt Romney may have made an unfortunate decision in making that ill-advised speech yesterday, and he may have given away the 2012 election by pulling his Benghazi punches in the debates.  But the one thing he did right in the debate was to declare that he would go through every expense area in the Federal budget and determine whether "it was important enough to borrow money from China to pay for it."

Dad, I think, would have been pretty challenged to have looked at the candidates back in 2012 had he lived one more year.  He would have looked at Obama and the open spigot of Dad's money and the rest of ours that his administration allows to be doled out without rationale or accountability.  He would have looked at an opposing candidate, even with "R" after his name, who said he was going to eyeball an entire budget with respect toward the taxpayer's contribution.

He might have said "Enough being Uncle Sucker."  No more Democrats.  None.

At least I hope he would.

Copyright 2016 by Robert Sutton
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