It’s high time to pull all of this money out of foreign countries and invest it in our own. |
AGREE. Lets please stop sending all this GD $$ to Israel. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Total_US_foreign_assistance_by_country,_adjusted_for_inflation,_1946-2022.png |
New Ebola outbreak in Kampala, but unfortunately our program is frozen and we can’t help stop it. We also do some of that evil family planning and gender work, so unlikely the project will survive.
Does anyone remember the Ebola scare? We can prevent that. Or we could have, last week. |
It is an investment in our own country. The same way things like public education, emergency reaponders, and police in our communities benefit the entire community. |
USAID doesn’t send money to Israel. Several US agencies do international work. USAID isn’t the only one, but it is often assumed it does all foreign assistance, I guess because ”aid” is in the agency’s name. Foreign Assistance encompasses any spending related to foreign policy. USAID does things like global health (like responding to Ebola outbreaks before they become a global problem), democracy strengthening, education, disaster assistance (like famines), creating markets for US goods. |
Agreed. I don't understand why people do not see the connection. |
Correction to the above. Foreign operations, not foreign assistance. |
USAID spends money on education, health, etc. in Palestinian territories. The US also gives Israel military aid to destroy Palestinian society, destroy key infrastructure, and kill Palestinians to enable Israel to steal more Palestinian land. It makes no sense, at all. |
The agency USAID has nothing to do with military aid to any country. |
The bold is a policy decision made at the Presidential and SecState and NSC level. It is not made by people at USAID and DoD and State. In fact, people at State resigned over the decision by top level political officials to continue to send weapons to Israeli units that were clearly in violation of international law and therefore the weapons transfers violated US Leahy law. What I object to is the demonization (and firing) of line staff who are just doing their job neutrally as civil servants. The paradoxical nature of US efforts is a result of presidential politics and reflects a lack of sustained attention to rational problem-solving by political leaders and a preference for dramatic show tirades to prove ones worth or timid self-absolutions of responsibility. Despite that, at the end of the day, our political leadership is our own fault, and it’s something that will take our sustained attention to community, coalition-building and action for change (if we want to get out of this mess). |
Does anyone remember when the Ebola outbreak was very widespread in Africa and we had patients coming to the US that were infected and then spread to other US healthcare workers? That’s only one of many reasons why we fund public health abroad - because you can’t stop illnesses at the US border. Withdrawing from WHO is a huge mistake. |
You do realize that investing in solving problems elsewhere also protects us, right? |
Department of State grant (2024)
Amount: $22,992 Recipient: Prague Pride Z.S. Purpose: The purpose of this grant is to organize the Prague pride parade. This March is part of the Celebration and support of the LGBT+ community in Czechia. Country: Czechia How does this protect Americans? |
Because societies that are more open and accepting of cultural minorities (of any variety) tend to be less hostile and less likely to go to war. |
This is all a huge mistake. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/medical-experts-concerned-usaid-spending-cuts-could-impact-global-health-programs Interview with Atul Gawande These are networks of hundreds of thousands of people supported by awards and grants who are working on behalf of the United States in cooperation with other countries about areas of mutual interest. It is our soft power. They are doing work like advancing agriculture, advancing markets and development, as well as economic and health development. So programs that are eliminating HIV, stopping T.B. in the world, stopping malaria, so that it doesn't affect us and improves the world overall, that is The — a core set of work, and not some kind of woke ideology. The U.S. has been — had an American century of health innovation and public health that has led the world, has advanced, doubled human life expectancy. And this work, putting it aside, shutting it down, seeing now that there are — there have been layoffs and dismissals, more than 1,000 staff have been sent home, many of them fired in the last 48 hours, that process is still under way and is a major concern. |