Foreign aid is always the easy target for people who talk about cutting the Federal budget.  American voters never seem to want cuts to any domestic program.  And of course, one must always point out that this only accounts for the barest of an iota of a fraction of a percentage of our fiscal situation.

However, it can be instructive to consider such aid in the context of what it is used for and how it could be used back home.

Excluding Iraq and Afghanistan–I give them a pass for the sake of argument under the philosophy of You Broke It, You Bought It–the two largest recipients of US military financing and aid are in one corner of the ME: Israel (~$2.75B) and Egypt (~$1.75B).  Again, it ain't a lot of coin in relative terms, but Israel's oppression of Gaza and the West Bank is financed in large part with our tax dollars, as was Mubarak's regime, recently voted off Autocratic Idol.

Cutting off Israel's and Egypt's allowance wouldn't make any significant contribution to reducing the Federal deficit or national debt.  Yet in light of Obama's proposal to cut $2.5B from The Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, perhaps it is significant.

I wonder what it would look like if we stopped aiding foreign militaries and instead aided poor people here in the US?  I wonder what it would look like if Americans took to the streets for 18 days to demand not domestic regime change, but a change in foreign policy regime?

ntodd