Foreign Aid

Foreign Aid Debate

Resolved: The US should increase foreign aid.

How much aid does the US give?

Draw a circle• Your circle is $100• Your circle represents the U.S. GDP (The total

market value of all goods and services produced in the US in a given year)

• How much of the circle does the US government send in foreign aid?

Opinions of amount• In March 1997, a joint poll by the Washington Post, Harvard

University and the Kaiser Family Foundation asked Americans which area of federal expenditure they thought was the largest. Was it Social Security (which actually constituted about a quarter of the budget)? Medicare? Military spending? Sixty-four percent of respondents said it was foreign aid—when in reality foreign aid made up only about 1 percent of total outlays (Washington Post, 3/29/97).

• Today, Americans think about 20 percent of the federal budget goes

toward foreign aid. When told the actual figure for U.S. foreign aid giving (about 1.6 percent of the discretionary budget), most respondents said they did not believe the number was the full amount (Program on International Policy Attitudes, 3/7/05)

How much is it?

The answer is .16% of our GDP that is…16 pennies per $100 we have or .55% of our budget that is…55 pennies per $100 our government spends or $16 billion

How does that compare to others?

How does that compare to military spending by the US?

How does our spending on the military compare to the rest of the world?

What could you do with more aid?• Millennium Declaration September 2000• Goals to reach by 2015• Half the number of people living in extreme poverty• 2/3 reduction in child mortality• reversal of spread of HIV/AIDS• primary education for children worldwide• • Advanced nations average 0.22% of GDP on foreign aid. The US is last.• The UN’s Zedillo commission found that it could reach the millennium

goals by increasing the average aid budget in rich countries to 0.44% of GDP.

• Now, Let’s try this again…

Foreign Aid Debate

• Resolved: The US should increase foreign aid.• Explain your answer• List pros and cons of increasing foreign aid