Flickr, Gilderic
Okay, so late one evening I see this drunk guy crawling on the ground around a lamp post. I ask him what he’s doing and he says he’s looking for his keys. I ask him where he thinks he dropped them.
“Over there, in that dark alley,” he slurs.
So why are you looking for them here under the street lamp?
“The light’s better,” he says.
That’s how the debate in Congress over cutting foreign aid often looks to me. Continue reading
USAID
Federal categories of spending, 2010
As President Obama and Congress tussle over how best to cut the federal deficit many are worried about the size of their slice of the federal budget pie.
Cutting foreign aid seems to be a popular idea with many Americans, probably because they believe we spend a lot of money on foreign aid. As the pie chart off to the right there demonstrates, which can be explored in greater depth at USAID’s Foreign Assistance Dashboard, we don’t.
Foreign aid is about one percent of the budget. Continue reading
