Question of the Day: What's up with all the billions our broke nation sends to Pakistan?

I realize we have been essentially paying them off to be our 'friend' for a number of years, but they were obviously a fairweather friend, as they were giving shelter to the enemy. I know we've always known they couldn't be trusted 100%, but there is no way I can imagine that they didn't know where he was living. And Mosharif (sp?) is throwing a hissy that US forces would dare come across the border without permission and conduct a raid and kill someone. I say, "Whatev, Mosh! You've been taking our $3B / year and acting like we were on the same side of this mess, when clearly you were lying. So... go ahead and whine about it, because you have much more explaining and apologizing to do than we do!"

Admittedly, I don't know much about Pakistan, but are they not an oil-rich nation like the other middle eastern nations? Do they NEED our $3B? Can they not develop their own resources and be self-supporting?

Are there ANY nations out there that send aid to the US like we send to other nations? We give gazillions to 'good works' around the world - money to fight AIDS in Africa, grain to former Soviet states, etc., and I would think that some of those nations (like Pakistan, perhaps) don't really NEED our money. Sure, they have poor people in their borders.... but so do we, and we don't seek or accept help from outside sources to combat *our* poverty, presumably because we do have resources.... and I presume that Pakistan has resources. Have we not had any expectation that they would develop their resources with aid we have given them?

Teach a man to fish.... and all that.

Now that UBL is dead, do we keep sending them the $3 Billion / year that we have been? Do we attach strings to it? Or do we just say, "Sorry - too bad. Thanks for the memories!"?

I am about to go into a rant. I am so sick of our nation sending money to other countries for whatever reason. What about OUR country? What about our hungry kids and our homeless people? I am no advocate of public assistance, but heck if we are going to send billions of dollars overseas, why not keep it over here and use it to help the people here that need it?

The state of our economy? Our public school system? Our unemployment rate? Our foreclosure rate? Our hungry? Our homeless? Our people without health insurance? But we continue to send millions of dollars overseas for various reasons. I am soooo tired of it. How about helping ourselves out?

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To Penny and Wow you are both 100 percent right, it is so overdue that we as the United States stop taking care and sending funds over to all these countries, we truly need to stop and take care of ourselves first...Peace and blessings to all...Catherine

I thought the same, that we've been generously sending a lot of money to "pock ee staun" as he likes to pronounce it. I think it makes us even more the fool when that's where obl has been hanging out.

Generally speaking, I very much agree. Cut off the overseas giving/spending period. Even if only for say, 5 years. The financial turnaround for our own nation would be phenomenal.

dl

Totally agree with you DL, we need to stop and need to worry about our own country and our people first, please there are so many poor and homeless and hungry Americans who could sincerely benefit for the money we have wasted to that country. While I am dearly proud to be an American, we need to take care of us first, after all who sincerely worries about us????. Peace and blessings to all...Catherine

Well, I have a bit of a different spin on it.

First, we're borrowing that money, so we don't really have it to turn around and spend it on our own poor.

Second, if we did spend it on the poor in the US, it would be more than just 'giving to the poor'. If the poor used it to buy groceries from your neighborhood grocer, etc., that would help the grocer at a time when our economy is struggling.

I don't think that's a good way to run an economy long-term... just saying if we had a free $3B to spend however we wanted, any of it that was spent at a US business would be a real blessing to that business owner.

And finally, I don't really think it would change our economy to have that money back. It's a drop in the bucket, really, compared to the gazillions we spend. The bulk of our expenditures go to the three big entitlement programs - Social Security, Medicare, and the military.

I just question whether, on principal, it is a good thing for us to throw so much money around with no accountability. If it buys us something in terms of security, trade, etc., that's one thing... but I don't know for sure what we were getting out of the deal with Pakistan. I assume that we thought we were getting intel... but I can't believe they didn't know exactly where UBL was.

ETA: I realized I lumped the military in with entitlement programs, and it's not an entitlement program... oops!

wow. It is good you came back to edit the military not being an entitlement. I don't think of ss or medicare as entitlements either. Not when people have paid INTO both of those, other than they are entitled to collect because of that status.

What I do see as an entitlement, as in expected, are free lunches, free medical care, housing, utilities, etc. I see the shift where people have come to expect these things and feel entitled without having paid in.

I pay dearly into the others you mentioned so I have a vested interest. I would not expect to just be taking, it will be something I have earned. I think the spin now on saying programs we've paid into are entitlements misses the mark when we have so many receiving so much when they pay little to nothing, or even get money back after federal taxes. But the policiticans don't like to touch that.

I do believe if we would seriously curtail / stop out of country spending, it could be used to pare down our deficit. I agree, it would not be used to give even more to the poor. A balanced budget should be the #1 priority and, like families should do, then a savings or reserve, and then we could see about helping the poor. Our priorities need be changed and stopping the flow of money out of the country is the place to start.

dl

Actually, I was thinking that they were entitlements specifically for that reason, DL - people are ENTITLED to them because they paid into them.

Wikipedia (the perfect source - loll) defines it this way: An entitlement is a guarantee of access to benefits based on established rights or by legislation.

So... by the definition, Medicare and SS are entitlements, but so are things like Medicaid and food stamps. Personally, I don't think of them in the same way for the reasons you state.