involves the forced transfer of wealth, but it is also counterproductive, as a ceaseless stream of scholarship continues to show. Foreign aid has been a disaster in Africa, delaying sound economic reforms and encouraging wastefulness and statism. We should not wish it on our worst enemy, much less a friend. Moreover, since the aid has to be spent on products made by American corporations, it is really just a form of corporate welfare, which I can never support.
Only those with a very superficial attachment to Israel can really be happy that she continues to rely on over $2 billion in American aid every year. In the absence of such grants, Israel would at last be under pressure to adopt a freer economy, thereby bringing about greater prosperity for her people and making it easier for her to be self-reliant. Foreign aid only inhibits salutary reforms like this, reforms that any true friend of Israel is eager to see. As a matter of fact, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies in Jerusalem argues that “foreign aid is the greatest obstacle to economic freedom in Israel.” It is an open secret that Israel’s military industry is inefficient and top-heavy with bureaucracy, shortcomings that consistent American aid obviously encourages. Why make difficult adjustments when billions in aid can be counted on regardless of what you do?
Our government has also done Israel a disservice by effectively infringing on her sovereignty. Israel seeks American approval for military action she deems necessary, she consults with America on matters pertaining to her own borders, and she even seeks American approval for peace talks with her neighbors—approval that is not always forthcoming. This needs to stop. And with an arsenal of hundreds of nuclear weapons, Israel is more than capable of deterring or repelling any enemy. She should once again be in charge of her own destiny.
In the face of the human cost of war—the thousands of American servicemen killed, the tens of thousands wounded, the civilian deaths—a reckoning of its material costs may seem almost obtuse. But we are not speaking of a few billion dollars here and there. The costs of our foreign policy have become so great that they risk bringing the country to bankruptcy.
When I say “bankruptcy,” I do not mean that the federal government will stop writing checks and spending money. The federal government is not likely to go out of business anytime soon. I mean that the checks and the money won’t buy anything, because the dollar will have been destroyed.
Few Americans realize just how costly our foreign policy is. Larry Lindsey, senior economic adviser to the Bush administration, embarrassed the White House when he warned in the
Wall Street Journal
that the Iraq war could cost $100 to $200 billion. Outrageous, officials said. The course of events has made Lindsey’s estimate into the epitome of optimism. In early 2006, Harvard’s Linda Bilmes and Columbia’s Joseph Stiglitz estimated the long-term costs of the war, including care for our maimed soldiers, at $2 trillion. By the end of the year they were saying that the $2 trillion figure was too low.
It isn’t just the Iraq war that busts the budget—it’s our overseas military presence as a whole. We have reached a point at which it now costs $1 trillion per year to maintain. One trillion dollars. The proposed Pentagon budget alone was $623 billion for 2008. “What’s remarkable about this year’s military budget,” wrote one military analyst, “is that it’s the largest budget since World War II, but, of course, we’re not fighting World War II.”
And just as in domestic spending, where higher budgets rarely translate into better performance, I am doubtful that much of this expenditure is actually contributing to our security. America would be much stronger and more secure if our government observed a noninterventionist foreign policy and put an end to its international overstretch. And
Only those with a very superficial attachment to Israel can really be happy that she continues to rely on over $2 billion in American aid every year. In the absence of such grants, Israel would at last be under pressure to adopt a freer economy, thereby bringing about greater prosperity for her people and making it easier for her to be self-reliant. Foreign aid only inhibits salutary reforms like this, reforms that any true friend of Israel is eager to see. As a matter of fact, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies in Jerusalem argues that “foreign aid is the greatest obstacle to economic freedom in Israel.” It is an open secret that Israel’s military industry is inefficient and top-heavy with bureaucracy, shortcomings that consistent American aid obviously encourages. Why make difficult adjustments when billions in aid can be counted on regardless of what you do?
Our government has also done Israel a disservice by effectively infringing on her sovereignty. Israel seeks American approval for military action she deems necessary, she consults with America on matters pertaining to her own borders, and she even seeks American approval for peace talks with her neighbors—approval that is not always forthcoming. This needs to stop. And with an arsenal of hundreds of nuclear weapons, Israel is more than capable of deterring or repelling any enemy. She should once again be in charge of her own destiny.
In the face of the human cost of war—the thousands of American servicemen killed, the tens of thousands wounded, the civilian deaths—a reckoning of its material costs may seem almost obtuse. But we are not speaking of a few billion dollars here and there. The costs of our foreign policy have become so great that they risk bringing the country to bankruptcy.
When I say “bankruptcy,” I do not mean that the federal government will stop writing checks and spending money. The federal government is not likely to go out of business anytime soon. I mean that the checks and the money won’t buy anything, because the dollar will have been destroyed.
Few Americans realize just how costly our foreign policy is. Larry Lindsey, senior economic adviser to the Bush administration, embarrassed the White House when he warned in the
Wall Street Journal
that the Iraq war could cost $100 to $200 billion. Outrageous, officials said. The course of events has made Lindsey’s estimate into the epitome of optimism. In early 2006, Harvard’s Linda Bilmes and Columbia’s Joseph Stiglitz estimated the long-term costs of the war, including care for our maimed soldiers, at $2 trillion. By the end of the year they were saying that the $2 trillion figure was too low.
It isn’t just the Iraq war that busts the budget—it’s our overseas military presence as a whole. We have reached a point at which it now costs $1 trillion per year to maintain. One trillion dollars. The proposed Pentagon budget alone was $623 billion for 2008. “What’s remarkable about this year’s military budget,” wrote one military analyst, “is that it’s the largest budget since World War II, but, of course, we’re not fighting World War II.”
And just as in domestic spending, where higher budgets rarely translate into better performance, I am doubtful that much of this expenditure is actually contributing to our security. America would be much stronger and more secure if our government observed a noninterventionist foreign policy and put an end to its international overstretch. And
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