President Bush seeks to overhaul American foreign aid to promote democratization and reform in recipient states. Liberal critics fear that need will be subordinated to politics if Bush gets his way. This is a debate about how to spend the money. There is a third position, the conservative position, which is to not spend the money, i.e., to end foreign aid.

Lord Peter Bauer derided foreign aid as "transferring money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries." Apart from this notion that it doesn't help those intended, government-to-government aid is often counterproductive in that it breeds contempt. It is just as common, after all, to resent rather than to love your benefactors. Do Koreans and Egyptians love or resent us? Propping up economies and governments that are systemically flawed pours money down a hole. It's wasteful. On the list of voter priorities, foreign aid rightfully ranks quite low. Hurricane Katrina relief, paying down the debt, and a thousand other concerns would fare better at persuading taxpayers to part with their money than, say, giving more than a half-billion dollars to Pervez Musharraf. There are scores of good arguments against foreign aid, but the best argument is the one that's in, or rather not in, the Constitution.

Just to expand on Dan's excellent arguments, not only are transfers of money counterproductive, but so are transfers of FOOD. Development economists have shown that food aid can contribute to a degeneration in a country's agricultural sector. It makes perfect sense: how can a subsistence farmer compete with the price of 0 dollars? These farmers no longer have a market, and they become dependent on, you guessed it, food aid. In short - food aid perpetuates food aid. Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Then he'll ask for more fish. Teach a man to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime, and you won't have to give him a thing. What's lacking in these countries isn't money or food - it's education and freedom, both of which are necessary for the advancement of society and the fostering of entrepreneurship.

We can not and will not ever change the course of a nation where an unstable government and/or culture prevails by dumping any kind of aid into it.

If destitute countries can't help themselves, then so be it. It's sad but they need to seek help from within before any kind of aid is of value.

Disturbing the way our politicians nonchalantly re-distribute OUR wealth.

I've been against all aid except for that which goes to Israel for years. I'm for it to Israel, mainly to stick it in the craw of all those anti-semites in Eurabia. I think we should end aid and close our bases over there as well. If they hate us so much, why spend our money there? Maybe I'm wrong, but, that's my opinion.

The idea that foreign aid is immoral and ineffective is such a basic and simple concept that it shouldn't have to be argued. That the practice still continues and that the overwhelming majority consider it a moral duty prima facie is sad and proves how much our postmodern society is blind to reason. Due to the extremely burdensome levels of taxation in this country people of good will often are unable to give. Reform the tax laws by cutting wasteful and ineffective social spending and more will give to the unfortunate and more will be responsible for themselves. Two birds are now killed with one legislative stone.

We have a Republican led legislative and executive branch. What gives? They're worthless cowards.

I also disagree with foreign aid in principle, but in the practicle world, where foreign aid isn't going away anytime soon (Imagine the media fallout if Bush were to try to even substantially reduce foreign aid) isn't it best to at least try to weild it so as to advance democratic societies, which is a key point in the United States National Security Strategy?

Foreign aid is even less effective than domestic welfare statism, which is also ineffective at eradicating poverty. Both are based upon the socialistic presumption that equitable redistribution of wealth is all that needs to occur to solve the world's problems. However, if we were to confiscate all the world's wealth and redistribute it equally to every man, woman and child on earth today, we'd be right back to where we are now within a year. Why? Because no two human beings are equal in terms of ability, education, drive, ambition, or work ethic. This, not some imagined "rape of the poor by the rich," is why there is an "inequitable" distribution of wealth, in the first place.

This in from Africa via Germany:

"SPIEGEL: The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty.

Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years."

see the full article at
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,363663,00.html

I couldn't have said it better myself:

"Shikwati: Huge bureaucracies are financed (with the aid money), corruption and complacency are promoted, Africans are taught to be beggars and not to be independent. In addition, development aid weakens the local markets everywhere and dampens the spirit of entrepreneurship that we so desperately need."