Wow!  I didn't see the original post, but since working on foreign aid programs was my career for 20 years and is among my favorite things to talk about, I've gotta weigh in.  Ex- this isn't an attack on you; even though I didn't read the post it's pretty obvious what it said.

First, Indigo is absolutely right that the US spends a very small amount to help other countries.  Less than one percent of our budget goes to foreign aid and less than .1 percent of our GNP.  In terms of both percentage of budget and percentage of GNP the US is dead last among industrialized countries in how much we give.  Yes- even France gives more in terms of percentage of budget and percentage of GNP.

In terms of absolute dollars, give the US credit- we do give the most.  But for the ten years from 1993 - 2003, even in absolute terms, the Japanese gave more than we did and they still give nearly as much as we do even though their GDP is much, much smaller.

Indigo is also right (or very close) on the statement about 95 percent of foreign aid is benefitting the US- although he may be exactly correct if one looks at indirect benefits.  But out of every dollar spent on foreign aid, 85 cents goes directly into the pockets of Americans. 

It goes to pay the salaries of people like me, when I was doing that type of work.  We were mandated to fly on US-owned airlines so all the travel money went to US companies, and where possible we had to stay in US owned hotels. 

One example would be when I went to Darfur last fall on a consulting assignment- the US provided food, but the food was grown in the US, bought from farmers in the US, flown on US airplanes, all the logistics were US-based costs.  There was virtually nothing of taxpayers money that ended up outside the US.

Another specific example- and this is very typical of how US foreign aid is spent: a project I worked on in Thailand that was about a one million dollar/year project- only about $150,000 of each year's million actually left the US.  It paid my salary and others plus our benefits, plus a small profit for the company.  Of the three years I worked on the project, I went to Thailand about 15 times for 2-3 weeks each time, the rest of the time was doing research in the US, preparing for trips, writing reports, etc.  Then for the trips overseas I had to fly on US air carriers and was supposed to stay in US-owned hotels.  So even the travel, except for the small amounts spent on food went back to the US.  We did a lot of training- at no cost to the participants, made presentations to the Thai gov't to get them to understand and implement a program for HIV/AIDS, and gave some small contracts to Thai organizations so they could provide prevention and treatment services after being trained.  But the vast majority of the money, which came directly from the US foreign aid budget, stayed right here in the US.

Yet I don't think that's terrible.  I like to think that in doing the work I did, I was doing something good and accomplishing something to help the Thais deal with their HIV/AIDS issue. 

There was another thread on spending by the US on education and health of our own people.  Yes, that should be significantly more than it is.  But we wouldn't gain much, if anything by cutting foreign aid- if we totally eliminated foreign aid and transferred that funding in its entirety to say medicare, it would only result in an increase of about 5 percent in the medicare budget.

But where the money really goes is to the military- to the tune of $450 BILLION, as we're told by the gov't, but if costs to other agencies that are actually military costs, experts have put the actual cost at about $700 BILLION.  That's at least 100 times more money than is spent on foreign aid!  Further, of the foreign aid budget, which is about $4 billion, nearly half of that actually goes to foreign military expenses- money for Colombia to fight the drug war comes from the foreign aid budget; money for Israel and Egypt to the tune of close to $2 billion that goes directly to support their military comes from the foreign aid budget.  So we're actually spending only about $2 billion on true foreign aid- and (I hate to be repetitive, but) about 85 percent stays in the US.

I can understand the feeling that we should be helping those at home rather than spending all our money to help those in other countries.  But the simple fact is that we spend such a tiny portion of our tremendous resources to actually do that. 

Surveys consistently show that most Americans think that we spend about 20 percent of our budget on foreign aid.  The same surveys show that those people believe that's too much but that we should spend about 10 percent.  If we were to spend that 10 percent, our foreign aid would be $40 billion rather than the actual $4 billion.

Americans are generous people, most do want to help the poor of the world.  But there's such a misconception about how much we actually spend to help the poor countries.

Sorry for going on, but the Iraq thing also hits home.  IMO we were lied to for the reasons of the war, and I've been staunchly opposed since the beginning.  We see on TV tape after tape of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice, and Bush saying that we had to go in because Hussien was a direct threat.  We see each of them talking about how the war would be over in a matter of months, that once Hussein was gone people would view us as liberators.  Anyone with knowledge of that part of the world knew that simply wasn't going to happen.  I saw a tape the other night of Rumsfeld saying the day before the war how he had "no doubt whatsoever" that as soon as the gov't was overthrown the rebuilding would begin and that oil revenue from Iraq would be used to pay for it- that there would be no additional cost to the US.  And here we are 2 years later paying not only with huge amounts of money, but with the lives of our young men and women.  I don't understand why there's no outrage over this!

Finally (if anyone's still reading), I totally agree with Sha and Indigo that I don't believe anything that this administration says.  It's the most secretive, deceitful administration possibly ever and says whatever it feels it needs to tell the American public to get regular Americans to buy into policies that actually hurt most Americans and benefit only the wealthy.

Marco