Aid is seriously a trivial quantity in the American budget. Withdrawing it would cause more instability in the world, something not very good for American (or Canadian) security.

Also, the other issue is those that want to reduce foreign aid, rarely want to redirect the money to aiding Americans in trouble, usually they want tax breaks.

The idea that the USA is in trouble because it helps other countries is ridiculous. The USA is involved in foreign markets, it doesn't "Send" jobs to places to help those places, companies move to areas in order to open up markets, and take advantage of depressed labour prices.

Anybody who talks about making significant spending cuts in the a time of economic downturn has not learned anything from the great depression. The time for fiscal prudence and financial balance sheets was when the economy was good. Which is why Clinton could produce a balanced budget. Cutting spending will simply put more people out of jobs at this point, and cause the recession to turn into a depression

I have repeatedly made statements about the insane spending practices of the Bush administration. I find it amusing that now of all times is when a balanced budget is important. When this hasn't been produced by a Republican Administration in decades.

Then the thing to do is stop taking loans from China. We already know that they deliver inferior products. Look at the lead paint in kiddie toys and such.

Last time I checked we were a country that put it's people first and everybody else second (according to many who are now ecstatic that the world loves us again). Instead of band aids that will only prolong the agony of this economic crisis as each bailout is only temporary, go back to page one, look at the 2nd post and see many of the things we need to do. Wars will not start over our coutry flat out telling people this is the way it HAS to be. Corporations need to bring the work back to this nation. End of story. There cannot be any long term steady employment unless it happens.

There is a word in every language in the world that means no. We need to start using it more, forget all these WTO's and NAFTA's and whatever else stands in our way. We have to be tough. No one will die if we have to go for a time without them while we reestablish manufacturing in this country.

Tax laws need to be fixed. Obama himself said there is plenty of time for profit (hey we agree on something). It may very well be time for a few years of break even in this country to get us back on the right track to being a self sufficent nation that can take care of it's own people's wants and needs. Loopholes in the system can and must be closed if we want the ecomony to rebound anytime in the near future.

Those going to goverment asking for handouts for frivoloties need to be told to stand on their own two feet while things get sorted out. If they cannot they are a liability and others will come along who will figure out ways to do the job and do it more efficiently. People who make a living by things that are not necessity may have to take a back seat right now. It's sad that some can't make a living by doing what they love, but for awhile--until the economy bounces back-starving artists may have to work at an assembly plant for a bit.

And I hate to sound like a broken record--but I feel this has a strong effect on the economy. Illegal aliens must be made to return to their country of origin. They are a drain on this society and I feel a major contribution to it's ills. And for those jobs "American's aren't willing to do"---unemployment is at 7.5%. Tough toes--instead of a government handout you must be willing to do any job that is available unless your health requires otherwise. And those that employ illegals must be heavily fined, and made to hire American citizens to fill these positions at a living wage. Migrant worker visas must be halted until our own people are working. If employers can prove their company cannot survive on paying decent then let them apply for special temporary government subsidies to help until they can figure out a way to cut spending.

Stop sending money to other countries for aid. I'm not saying we can't help countries with some kind of disaster but.....We need the aid right now and we have to come first. I feel for third world countries as much as anyone on here, but unless we want to become one ourselves--we have to take a pause from providing for others and provide for ourselves. Individual donations are up to the donor--but our tax dollars need to stay in this country for the immediate future.

If this economy is as bad as the democrats say it is (and I still believe a bit of this is fear mongering on their part to shove this bill through), then Americans must get off their collective hind-ends and put forth the effort to make us a great nation once again.
It can be done and we're just the folks to do it.

Obama bill: $845 billion
more for global poverty
Democrat sponsors act OK'd by Senate panel
that would cost 0.7% of gross national product

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Sen. Barack Obama, perhaps giving America a preview of priorities he would pursue if elected president, is rejoicing over the Senate committee passage of a plan that could end up costing taxpayers billions of dollars in an attempt to reduce poverty in other nations.

The bill, called the Global Poverty Act, is the type of legislation, "We can – and must – make … a priority," said Obama, a co-sponsor.

It would demand that the president develop "and implement" a policy to "cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015 through aid, trade, debt relief" and other programs.

When word about what appears to be a massive new spending program started getting out, the reaction was immediate.

"It's not our job to cut global poverty," said one commenter on a Yahoo news forum. "These people need to learn how to fish themselves. If we keep throwing them fish, the fish will rot."

http://tinyurl.com/3y7cdn

I agree it is a trivial amount in the big picture. But a lot of trival amounts add up to to a substantial amount. Withdrawing it until we fix our own problems will not affect our security, if it will affect Canadian security-then beef up the amount of foreign aid you send.

Spending is the root of this problem. Republicans and democrats alike got us here.

Even some Democrats are now objecting that the measure contains too few highway and mass transit projects. Moreover Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Economy.com, says most of the infrastructure spending in the plan won’t occur until 2010 or later.

Provisions of the bill that many legislators are questioning:

$1 billion for Amtrak, which hasn’t earned a profit in four decades.

$2 billion to help subsidize child care.

$400 million for research into global warming.

$2.4 billion for projects to demonstrate how carbon greenhouse gas can be safely removed from the atmosphere.

$650 million for coupons to help consumers convert their TV sets from analog to digital, part of the digital TV conversion.

$600 million to buy a new fleet of cars for federal employees and government departments.

$75 million to fund programs to help people quit smoking.

$21 million to re-sod the National Mall, which suffered heavy use during the Inauguration.

$2.25 billion for national parks. This item has sparked calls for an investigation, because the chief lobbyist of the National Parks Association is the son of Rep. David R. Obey, D-Wisc. The $2,25 billion is about equal to the National Park Service’s entire annual budget. The Washington Times reports it is a threefold increase over what was originally proposed for parks in the stimulus bill. Obey is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.

$335 million for treatment and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases.

$50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts. $4.19 billion to stave off foreclosures via the Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The bill allows nonprofits to compete with cities and states for $3.44 billion of the money, which means a substantial amount of it will be captured by ACORN, the controversial activist group currently under federal investigation for vote fraud. Another $750 million would be exclusively reserved for nonprofits such as ACORN – meaning cities and states are barred from receiving that money. Sen. David Vitter, R-La., charges the money could appear to be a “payoff” for the partisan political activities community groups in the last election cycle.

$44 million to renovate the headquarters building of the Agriculture Department.

$32 billion for a “smart electricity grid to minimize waste.

$87 billion of Medicaid funds, to aid states.

$53.4 billion for science facilities, high speed Internet, and miscellaneous energy and environmental programs.

$13 billion to repair and weatherize public housing, help the homeless, repair foreclosed homes.

$20 billion for quicker depreciation and write-offs for equipment.

$10.3 billion for tax credits to help families defray the cost of college tuition.

$20 billion over five years for an expanded food stamp program.

Republican leaders say the stimulus package will add 32 new government programs at a cost of $136 billion. They object that many of the programs, once established, are likely to continue indefinitely.

Most media outlets are reporting the cost of the package at $819 billion. As Newsmax revealed yesterday, however, the Congressional Budget Office calculates that the interest on the debt generated by the bill’s spending will cost another $347.1 billion, making the total cost approximately $1.17 trillion.

Of course, the measure contains hundreds of billions in tax cuts and infrastructure projects that conservatives will find palatable. But as House Minority whip Eric Cantor, R-Va., told the media Wednesday, “This was not a stimulus bill. It was a spending bill.”

http://tinyurl.com/amhzu3

Which brings us to the balance of trade..... which hasn't been balanced since long before nafta but worse with nafta. It is a big piece of the economic sustainability problem. Balancing it has to be a big part of the solution, too.

However, first we put as many of the 3.5 million back to work as we can ... and get a long overdue overhaul of our infrastructure while we are at it. Concurrently, they need to be looking at what companies can be making that requires American workers to make it so that Americans have jobs and can both pay taxes and consume.

If you cut your ties with other countries, you can't sell your products to other countries, your market dries up and your recession worsens. The United States economy has been the largest beneficiary of the global economy. Your solution for the sick horse is to shoot it.

He even stated this package met him at the door.

Defies Transparency Aim in Refusal to Disclose (Update2)



By Mark Pittman, Bob Ivry and Alison Fitzgerald


Nov. 10 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.

``The collateral is not being adequately disclosed, and that's a big problem,'' said Dan Fuss, vice chairman of Boston- based Loomis Sayles & Co., where he co-manages $17 billion in bonds. ``In a liquid market, this wouldn't matter, but we're not. The market is very nervous and very thin.''

Bloomberg News has requested details of the Fed lending under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure.

The Fed made the loans under terms of 11 programs, eight of them created in the past 15 months, in the midst of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.

``It's your money; it's not the Fed's money,'' said billionaire Ted Forstmann, senior partner of Forstmann Little & Co. in New York. ``Of course there should be transparency.''

Treasury, Fed, Obama

Federal Reserve spokeswoman Michelle Smith declined to comment on the loans or the Bloomberg lawsuit. Treasury spokeswoman Michele Davis didn't respond to a phone call and an e-mail seeking comment.

President-elect Barack Obama's economic adviser, Jason Furman, also didn't respond to an e-mail and a phone call seeking comment from Obama. In a Sept. 22 campaign speech, Obama promised to ``make our government open and transparent so that anyone can ensure that our business is the people's business.''

The Fed's lending is significant because the central bank has stepped into a rescue role that was also the purpose of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, bailout plan -- without safeguards put into the TARP legislation by Congress.

Total Fed lending topped $2 trillion for the first time last week and has risen by 140 percent, or $1.172 trillion, in the seven weeks since Fed governors relaxed the collateral standards on Sept. 14. The difference includes a $788 billion increase in loans to banks through the Fed and $474 billion in other lending, mostly through the central bank's purchase of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds.

Sept. 14 Decision

Before Sept. 14, the Fed accepted mostly top-rated government and asset-backed securities as collateral. After that date, the central bank widened standards to accept other kinds of securities, some with lower ratings. The Fed collects interest on all its loans.

The plan to purchase distressed securities through TARP called for buying at the ``lowest price that the secretary (of the Treasury) determines to be consistent with the purposes of this Act,'' according to the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, the law that covers TARP.

The legislation didn't require any specific method for the purchases beyond saying mechanisms such as auctions or reverse auctions should be used ``when appropriate.'' In a reverse auction, bidders offer to sell securities at successively lower prices, helping to ensure that the Fed would pay less. The measure also included a five-member oversight board that includes Paulson and Bernanke.

At a Sept. 23 Senate Banking Committee hearing in Washington, Paulson called for transparency in the purchase of distressed assets under the TARP program.

`We Need Transparency'

``We need oversight,'' Paulson told lawmakers. ``We need protection. We need transparency. I want it. We all want it.''

At a joint House-Senate hearing the next day, Bernanke also stressed the importance of openness in the program. ``Transparency is a big issue,'' he said.

The Fed lent cash and government bonds to banks, which gave the Fed collateral in the form of equities and debt, including subprime and structured securities such as collateralized debt obligations, according to the Fed Web site. The borrowers have included the now-bankrupt Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Citigroup Inc. and JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Banks oppose any release of information because it might signal weakness and spur short-selling or a run by depositors, said Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs for the Financial Services Roundtable, a Washington trade group.

Frank Backs Fed

``You have to balance the need for transparency with protecting the public interest,'' Talbott said. ``Taxpayers have a right to know where their tax dollars are going, but one piece of information standing alone could undermine public confidence in the system.''

The nation's biggest banks, Citigroup, Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Morgan Stanley, declined to comment on whether they have borrowed money from the Fed. They received $120 billion in capital from the TARP, which was signed into law Oct. 3.

In an interview Nov. 6, House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said the Fed's disclosure is sufficient and that the risk the central bank is taking on is appropriate in the current economic climate. Frank said he has discussed the program with Timothy F. Geithner, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and a possible candidate to succeed Paulson as Treasury secretary.

``I talk to Geithner and he was pretty sure that they're OK,'' said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. ``If the risk is that the Fed takes a little bit of a haircut, well that's regrettable.'' Such losses would be acceptable, he said, if the program helps revive the economy.

`Unclog the Market'

Frank said the Fed shouldn't reveal the assets it holds or how it values them because of ``delicacy with respect to pricing.'' He said such disclosure would ``give people clues to what your pricing is and what they might be able to sell us and what your estimates are.'' He wouldn't say why he thought that information would be problematic.

Revealing how the Fed values collateral could help thaw frozen credit markets, said Ron D'Vari, chief executive officer of NewOak Capital LLC in New York and the former head of structured finance at BlackRock Inc.

``I'd love to hear the methodology, how the Fed priced the assets,'' D'Vari said. ``That would unclog the market very quickly.''

TARP's $700 billion so far is being used to buy preferred shares in banks to shore up their capital. The program was originally intended to hold banks' troubled assets while markets were frozen.

AIG Lending

The Bloomberg lawsuit argues that the collateral lists ``are central to understanding and assessing the government's response to the most cataclysmic financial crisis in America since the Great Depression.''

The Fed has lent at least $81 billion to American International Group Inc., the world's largest insurer, so that it can pay obligations to banks. AIG today said it received an expanded government rescue package valued at more than $150 billion.

The central bank is also responsible for losses on a $26.8 billion portfolio guaranteed after Bear Stearns Cos. was bought by JPMorgan.

``As a taxpayer, it is absolutely important that we know how they're lending money and who they're lending it to,'' said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Arlington, Virginia- based Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.

Ratings Cuts

Ultimately, the Fed will have to remove some securities held as collateral from some programs because the central bank's rules call for instruments rated below investment grade to be taken back by the borrower and marked down in value. Losses on those assets could then be written off, partly through the capital recently injected into those banks by the Treasury.

Moody's Investors Service alone has cut its ratings on 926 mortgage-backed securities worth $42 billion to junk from investment grade since Sept. 14, making them ineligible for collateral on some Fed loans.

The Fed's collateral ``absolutely should be made public,'' said Mark Cuban, an activist investor, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks professional basketball team and the creator of the Web site BailoutSleuth.com, which focuses on the secrecy shrouding the Fed's moves.

The Bloomberg lawsuit is Bloomberg LP v. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, 08-CV-9595, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).

According to the latest available numbers I can find, the US spent about 26 billion in foreign aid in 2008 (the number varies yearly--but will jump tremendously thanks to the big O and Mr. Emanuel) and Canada spent about 3.1 Billion (2006). I know our GNP's differ but the amount is a vast difference.

Exactly how can we as a nation be borrowing money from other countries like it's going out of style and then turn around and give that money away?

ps My sister was in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia ...she learned that all the aid money just lines the pockets of the top politicians and caused the populace to hate us even more .... and instead of her helping by being there he being there cost a skilled Etheipian teacher a job.

Have you checked our balance of trade? They aren't buying ... especially the ones we send the most aid to. Are we really selling more to them than we are giving in aid?

And that is exactly the reason we should stop it, at least short term when we really can't afford it.

I used GNP because that is the standard we are supposedly held to by the UN, and the standard used to measure what we give. But I did get my info from government sources, not a biased source. Still, it changes nothing about the main idea of the original post I made. In my opinion, we need to cut foreign aid until we as a country are stable. Every drop in the bucket counts if we are truly in the mess they say we are.

No ,we aren't selling more to any country than we are giving in aid, that's the problem. No one even comes close except Israel, who spends 75% of their aid from us on weapons, so we basically get some of it back, but through channels, not directly. And why give them money to get it back at a loss?

Once again, why weren't you guys all crying for immediate withdrawal from Iraq? "

I did. I marched against the war before we went. I happen to be wearning my "War Without End? Not In Our Name! TShirt tonight.

Just me, but I don't throw even small amounts of money away ... a foreign aid is a throw away. In every call to every Senator I am very clear. Stimulus only contains dollars directly linked to Americans being hired. No link, no $$. It belongs in a different bill - not this one. Tell me how many jobs we get for each $$. Tell me how much tax revenue that will create from those jobs and the jobs they create. You can prove it, I'm for it. You doing any more handouts - I was against them and I still am.

Oh, and I want infrastructure in return for my stimulus

I have a really difficult time believing that we could have arrived where we are and no one could see it coming, it's almost as if we were guided to this point. We no longer have the manufacturing ability that powered our economy, trade agreements made it to easy for american based corporations to leave the county and then sell back to us, add in giving China favored nations status and the out come for us had to be obivious

It's a tiny fraction of the budget

No actually the UN recommends based on GDP, and it's still true that Canada gives more proportionaly (and we don't give enough) besides this isn't a discussion about foreign aid, but stimulus.

The United States government deficit and it's trade deficit are entirely different things. Any attempt to conflate the two shows gross ignorance.

Also 80 % of foreign aid goes to American companies operating in those countries

Once again, why weren't you guys all crying for immediate withdrawal from Iraq? I mean it was a deficit then... why the sudden need for a balanced budget?

If 80% of foreign aid goes to American companies operating in foreign countries, then cutting it won't cause any friction to our security will it?

If it isn't a discussion about aid, then quit harping about it. It's a suggestion--don't worry it'll never come to pass anyway. Obama's foreign aid package is already slated for billions over what we give now.

And Kev, as usual you totally misunderstand the rich--they want everybody to have money--then they make more too. People being broke means they don't make any either. More people unemployed means more taxes to pay for their unemployment and welfare.

Who needs a balanced budget? We just need our people at work. Jobs that aren't temporary--not resodding Obama's little after party--which he should pay for. Not Amtrak, which will soon be a thing of the past because it doesn't go anywhere people need to go. Jobs that are permanent and have a future.

I find this stimulus package to be a joke. How often have we heard the mantra from those supporters of keynesian economics that this is the way to prosperity. Of the fable that it worked in the great depression.
No less an authority than FDR's Treasury secretary and close friend, Henry Morganthau, conceded this fact to Congressional Democrats in May 1939: "We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong ... somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises ... I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... And an enormous debt to boot!"*