Having just read an opinion piece by John Kerry, the Democratic Senator and former presidential candidate from Massachusetts, I can no longer maintain my previous stance on keeping the Monitor a strictly news-only, opinion-free service. The continued push to redistribute our nation's wealth around the globe under the misguided name of foreign aid continues unabated in the U.S. Congress, despite growing public opposition. Kerry's powerful position as Foreign Affairs Committee chairman makes his stance on maintaining the status quo all the more troubling to me as a citizen.
A little more analysis is needed to put the overall U.S. foreign aid situation in perspective. Though it remains to be seen whether I to transform the Monitor into a more forceful mechanism for shedding light on foreign aid remains to be seen, so for now I'll just say that Kerry's push for U.S. hyper-interventionism needs to be addressed.
I highly suggest reading Kerry's piece, titled "Amid budget crisis, a defense of foreign aid," regardless of where you stand on the issue. I posted the following comment on the Washington Post site in response to Kerry's call to "step forward" and keep the foreign aid machine running on high.
Sen. Kerry's cliché-ridden pitch for further U.S. entrenchment around the globe is not very convincing; indeed, his exhortation to avoid "pulling back" and to instead "step forward" evinces the feel of past proclamations (from another leader) that "if you're not with us, you're against us." Not quite as threatening as the latter example, but equally useful in setting the terms of the debate -- or, should I say, in establishing what is within the acceptable realm of discussion in the Foreign Relations Committee chairman's mind.
His comment that "Many question whether we can afford foreign aid... however... we can’t afford not to" attempts to convey an urgency that just isn't there. Similarly, his attempt to minimize the breadth of foreign aid by contrasting it to the significantly larger Pentagon budget is rich in emotion but lacking in logic. The DoD budget is bigger than those of the dozens of agencies administering foreign aid combined? Thanks, Senator, for pointing that out, but that does not justify spending billions on all the other aid programs -- the ones he conveniently left out his commentary, Secy. Clinton's multimillion-dollar embassy crystal-glassware initiative aside.
Every dollar we spend to help small businesses, for example, in the nation of Macedonia is one less dollar we spend to help small businesses here in the U.S. -- or, in the alternative, one less dollar for the American taxpayer to keep in his or her bank account. Every dollar we spend to modernize the educational system, for instance, in the Kingdom of Jordan, is one less dollar to go toward U.S. schools, or, as I said, toward meeting the daily struggle of the U.S. taxpayer. Each cent spent on promoting tourism, to cite just one example, in West Bank & Gaza is a penny taken away from U.S. citizens, for whom Chairman Kerry unconvincingly argues will benefit from the flow of dwindling wealth from the U.S. to rest of the world.
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