Medicine Lodge High School
Medicine Lodge, Kansas
Teachers:  Devra Parker and Steve Germes

 

Foreign Aid: Our Debt Problem
By Brody Vandegrift
12^th Grade

 

On the weekend of the baseball tournament, I worked long hours all three days in the heat. I made quite a bit of money that weekend, so Landon and I decided to go to Wichita.  I went with my friend, not planning to spend my money on anything.  But, we went into Dick’s Sporting Goods, and I just happened to find some items I wanted for the upcoming football season. I simply could not resist new tights, gloves and cleats.  I mean, I would play football so much betters with these.  And, of course, I ended up spending over $130 dollars.  All my hard work—all my sweat—all my energy, gone in 15 minutes of spending. I have to ask myself: Is this not the same as America’s commitment to foreign aid? We, as Americans, work day in and day out.  We end up giving away all the goods we either make or produce. We deserve to reap the rewards we deserve.

Many people believe that everyone in our nation is enthusiastic about foreign aid.  Yet, there is no documentation stating that people are enthused about giving other countries aid.  Also, the United States stands out among all nations for giving the most money in foreign aid--to corrupt governments.  “Bold empirical claims about the positive effects of ‘selectivity’ are based entirely on World Bank research, most of which is difficult or impossible to reproduce by outside researchers.” Even though World Bank’s data has helped in the debate on foreign aid, people cannot trust the same information.  Obviously, the data is biased if it comes directly from the source providing it.  If outside researchers cannot produce the same results, who is to blame?  The World Bank is—the basis of the creation of the Millennium Challenge Account.

In fact, it was the World Bank who said, “We need to do something about foreign aid.”  So, President Bush, in a bold statement for America, created a program where we would give five billion dollars in aid over the next three years.  The foreign countries will have to apply for aid instead of being given what they think they deserve.  Then, after they receive aid, it must be used properly, and they must provide a written report on what they did with the assistance.  But, will this work?  People cannot be held accountable on paper.  America might continue to give money to corrupt nations.  Why don’t they just lie so they can get aid?  Yes, they have to show how the funds are used.  Anything can be tampered with.  A good example would be like Watergate with President Nixon. That is one of the best examples of tampering that is around.

Another problem with foreign aid is that we are so worried with the Middle East that we give 1/3 of our foreign aid to them due to the fact that we need the oil. Also, we give more military aid to more countries for their conflicts while we, in turn, give them our men’s lives. Are our men's lives' worth the aid for another country? Do our men need to lose their lives over a few million dollars that we are just giving away? Apparently President Bush does because he gives other countries our men like he gives away our money. 

Thus, we can not afford to give more money to the countries in need due to our national debt. Or national debt is an estimated 6.7 trillion dollars. It is like the war in Iraq, we are to give them 87 million dollars and ten million of it we have to borrow.  So as we give them money we are paying double interest from that loan and our nation goes farther debt. And now President Bush wants to just give them the money.  Congress voted against him saying that they must repay 40 % of loan.  Don’t you think that we should get rid of our National Debt?  It seems to me that President Bush would rather take care of every other nation besides ours.  We need to keep our money in our country and try to keep our country from going into a state of depression.  We have some of the same signs that we had in the past before our last depression.  We need to conserve our men and our nation’s wealth for the good of our nation. That is why we do not need to aid other nations with there problems.                  Back