What follows are the fairly standard talking points being used these days to defend civilian foreign assistance. They all miss the point.
The $35 billion per year for foreign assistance typically appropriated by Congress is about the same amount appropriated for a single military fighter jet.
This argument says that $35 billion is an inconsequential amount, a drop in the bucket, less than a single fighter jet. I doubt working families in America will agree. They’re instead likely to take this as an example of a bloated Washington bureaucracy that doesn’t know the value of money.
Out of $35 billion, around $2 billion a year goes to American farmers to purchase food aid commodities for humanitarian assistance.
I’ve spoken to many Midwestern farmers, and they do support humanitarian assistance, but for its own sake, not because the farmers themselves profit from it (even if they do). They’d profit just as much if we took the food and saved on transportation costs by just dumping it into the sea, right?
Out of $35 billion, around $1 billion goes to American small businesses that provide technical services.
Is the average American taxpayer likely to support foreign assistance merely because it benefits a few “beltway banditos”? Note: A “beltway bandito” is a small beltway bandit.
Every $1 spent on foreign assistance returns $8 to the U.S. economy.
This statistic is tossed around frequently without explanation. Let’s clarify: Foreign assistance is like a bribe, opening up new markets for American products. For every $1 given as foreign assistance to a country, that same country’s businesses end up buying on average around $8 in American products.
The basic argument here is that foreign assistance isn’t just “free”, but also pays dividends. Maybe it does, but again, this is a terrible way to justify it. If the goal is merely to make a profit, is this the best way to do it?
Suppose a business operates on a 10% margin (which is high). That means for $8 in sales they’ll have around $7.27 in costs, leaving $0.73 in profit (10%). Now tell them that the U.S. Government will pay an additional bribe of $1 in their behalf, under the guise of foreign assistance. Does that make any sense? Why not just give the $1 to the business directly?
In return for foreign assistance, assisted countries agree to help us in the war on terror.
The other word for this is “bribery”. Is that really why we’re asking the American taxpayer to support foreign assistance? Must we bribe other countries to fight terrorists? Isn’t there some other way to persuade them? Can’t we instead address the root causes of terrorism?
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There are perfectly valid, direct arguments to be made in favor of each of the various kinds of foreign assistance. You won’t find any of those arguments in the list above, which are all quite frankly cynical to the core.
There is, however, one additional talking point that deserves mention. It’s not cynical, but it can be quite misleading. It goes like this:
Foreign assistance helps the poor. It demonstrates America’s humanity.
This one’s misleading because it suggests that the single purpose of foreign assistance is to help the poor. It’s the “we’re good people” argument, the “do unto others” argument, the “goody two shoes” argument. There’s some truth in it, and there are many in Congress who vote in favor of foreign assistance precisely because it demonstrate’s that Americans are a compassionate people (which we are, for the most part). But this is not the argument that will win a majority in Congress. It’s only part of the story.
The “we’re good people” argument is most effective in defense of humanitarian and emergency health assistance, though in both cases we’re talking about solutions to terrible problems that are only short-term, temporary fixes. We’re keeping people alive. That’s important. But chances are, except in the case of natural disasters as opposed to human-made disasters, the fundamental problems will remain to rear their ugly heads another day.
In the case of security assistance, the objective really isn’t about helping the poor at all, though sometimes it does. The “bribery” argument fits this kind of assistance better.
And finally, in the case of development assistance, we are indeed talking about alleviating poverty, but in a particular way, and not just because we’re good people (though for the most part we are). In the case of development assistance, we’re addressing root causes. Yet none of the talking points above speak to root causes at all.
Development assistance may be the most important kind of assistance of them all, yet we consistently fail to explain it to the American people or to their representatives in Congress. I fear that part of the problem may be that many of the leadership who until recently worked at USAID didn’t even understand it themselves.
That leadership was more likely to argue for the “strategic” importance of USAID working closely with the State Department. In the case of any kind of assistance other than security assistance, that’s just nonsense. But the people who think this way just won the latest battle.
Let’s see if they can hold the field.