Director of Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance Program Connie Veillette was quoted in an ABC News article on foreign aid.
From the Article
Foreign aid may account for a mere 1 percent of the federal budget, but talk of eliminating it consumed a much higher percentage of the most recent GOP presidential primary debate.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry said he would make every country “come in at zero and make your case” before receiving any aid money. Newt Gingrich agreed, saying at Saturday’s CBS/National Journal debate that “you ought to start off at zero and say, explain to me why I should give you a penny.”
And front-runner Mitt Romney concurred, although his spokesman said later that the former Massachusetts governor would only zero aide to Pakistan and other “countries that can take care of themselves or countries that oppose American interests.”
All foreign assistance, which includes everything from HIV/AIDS prevention to Haiti earthquake assistance to Afghan military training, accounted for about 1 percent of the federal budget in 2010.
To put that in perspective, the interest on America’s debt accounted for about 5 percent and Medicare made up about 13 percent of the total $3.4 trillion budget.
“The first thing to understand about foreign aid is that it’s tiny, it’s less than 1 percent of the United States budget,” said Daniel Serwer, a professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. “You can cut it all and make no difference whatsoever to the debt problem.”