pvp@ihuxl.UUCP (Philip Polli) (02/18/84)
Inmet!nrh appears to be trying to make three points. In the
interest of space, I'll summarize them.
1) S/he claims that people given food by us to live on
will become dependant upon our largesse. S/he claims that
this can be shown by studying history, and talks about
"welfare millionares".
Answer: In recent history, we provided Europe massive amounts
of economic aid, through the Marshall Plan. Are they dependant
on us now? Please name a few countries that you think are
filled with lazy citizens depending on their neighbors for
handouts, and are perfectly content to continue doing so.
2) S/he claims that if we give food to these countries, corrupt
officials will skim some of it.
Answer: So what? Just consider it a cost of distribution.
Should we let people starve to death just because someone
less needy might get some of the food too? This is, though,
part of the reason why I would rather distribute food to needy
nations instead of low interest loans to buy food. Corrupt
officials can steal the money more easily than they can steal food.
3) S/he states that I shouldn't even suggest that we give this
food to other nations, since the money to buy it was "stolen" from
the taxpayers by force by a government that had no right
to do so.
Answer: You are not being forced to pay taxes to the U.S. government.
You can leave any time you want. I don't know of anyone who
would even dream of keeping you here. If you want to stay in this
country, and obtain the benefits of citizenship here, you are
tacitly agreeing to take part in this democracy. Part of that
agreement is that the government will spend some of your earnings
to provide for the common welfare. What we spend it on is decided
by our government representatives. All your talk about the
government "stealing" money is sheer demagoguery. If you want
to stay in the house, you have to pay your share of the rent.
Everyone of us has the right to talk about what we should spend
that money on, and to try to convince other citizens and government
representatives to think the same way. Personally, I think that
using our surplus food to feed starving people elsewhere in the
world would be a good investment. We would probably be able to save
a lot of money in the future. We wouldn't have to provide
so much military aid to prop up those corrupt officials that
bother you so much.
Phil Polli
{ihnp4!}ihuxl!pvp dap@ihopa.UUCP (afsd) (02/20/84)
I read an article somewhere which said that the reason that US food is not sent overseas is because the money to package it up, administer the shipping and actually send it over far exceeds the money needed to produce the same amount of food in the recipient nation. I don't know if this is true or not, but I suggest that somebody look into it before they assume that the US is a vile criminal for letting this food go to waste. Darrell Plank ihnp4!ihopa!dap BTL-IH
pvp@ihuxl.UUCP (Philip Polli) (02/28/84)
>Total cost of the plan, according to the Information Please Almanac 1983. >was $11 billion. Total cost of foreign assistance (page 79 of the >almanac) for the entire postwar period is $213 billion. Foreign >aid is far from over: in 1980, "net assistance" was $10 billion. >About 10% of that was military. >If you figure that prices tripled (from consumer price indexes >for "all items") between 1955 to 1980 you get $9billion/3 = $3 billion >in 1955 dollars of non-military foreign aid in ONE YEAR (1980) vs >$11 billion / 5 years = $2 billion in foreign aid per year under >the Marshall plan. Get it? We're spending MORE now in foreign aid >than we did under the Marshall Plan in '47-'52. The facts as presented above do not support the conclusion given. The conclusion I draw is that we are giving more foreign aid to the entire world today than we gave only to Western Europe after WWII. Somehow, that doesn't surprise me. There is nothing here or in the remainder of the argument that demonstrates that foreign aid causes nations to become dependent on us, which was my main point. The remainder of the paragraph simply repeats *opinions* about such dependencies. >I was not claiming that this disqualifies aid to such countries. The >point I made was that your assumption seemed to be that we could feed the >hungry with our surplus, but you were NEGLECTING the cost of paying off >corrupt officials. I don't recall discussing all the costs involved in my proposal. I was addressing the desireability and feasability of sharing our surplus, not the bottom line cost. I certainly realize that it could be expensive. The rest of the response continues to "rail against oppressive taxation and government". I am going to try to divide the issues into the separate categories that they belong in. 1) Does the federal government have the right to collect tax money and spend it on foreign aid? The answer is clearly yes. The rights of the government are spelled out in the Constitution and its amendments. The Constitution also clearly spells out the procedure for determining if the government has the right to do something. You challenge the action in the Supreme Court, and it decides the matter. I know that the Supreme Court has held that taxes are constitutional. I imagine somebody has challenged foreign aid also, and probably lost. The point here is that you cannot call taxes theft, because it is clearly not illegal. 2) Does the government collect too much tax money? Who knows? We can argue about that forever. You vote for your tax-cutter and I'll vote for mine. There is no right answer. 3) Should we spend tax money on foreign aid or other charity? We can and are arguing about that too. You have your opinion, and I have mine. If I win in congress, you have to pay up. Just like I have to pay to put all that plutonium into holes in the ground. I can call it unfair, stupid, and a waste of money, but I can't say it's illegal. 4) *Should* the government have the right to spend tax money on foreign aid, or whatever else you don't happen to like? A different question. Note the use of the word SHOULD instead of DOES. The Constitution does give it the right today (see question 1). If you want to change the Constitution, then you have to submit an amendment, and have it ratified by the states. After that you can tell me the government has no right to do so. Until then, you're simply *wrong*. 5) Is our government too oppressive? Again, a fun question to argue about. You have to follow the following procedure if you think the current state of affairs is too oppressive for your taste: 1) Elect people who think like you and change the laws, or 2) Get the Supreme Court to agree with you and strike down the laws, or 3) Shame the congress into changing the laws (See Voting Rights Act),or 4) Get an amendment passed banning the laws, or 4) Leave the country. You don't have to love it. You just have to follow the rules. If you don't like the rules, you can change them, but you have to follow the rules to do it. If you don't follow the rules, (like not paying your taxes) then you go to jail. Phil Polli {ihnp4!}ihuxl!pvp
saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley, Univ. of Waterloo) (03/01/84)
I do not have any figures to substantiate the following claim, so I would appreciate it greatly if anybody could supply some. My understanding of foreign aid is that the US gets more money back from the governments it is "helping" than the original amount of money given to these countries in the form of "aid". If this is so, arguing about whether your tax money should go to "charities" is simply ridiculous, since "aid" can simply be considered as an investment of the taxpayers' money by the state, and not as money that is thrown away never to be seen again. Sophie Quigley watmath!saquigley