"Conservatives once had choice words for foreign aid. It was 'money down a rathole' (Jesse Helms), and it amounted to 'putting Ghana over Grandma' (Tom DeLay). Duly, Dr. Ron Paul opposes all foreign aid because it's unauthorized by the Constitution. The American Founding Fathers believed, as does Dr. Paul, that politicians have no right to be benevolent with funds belonging to the people.
So while it is true that the Israeli government will be (annually) $2.58 billion the poorer under a Paul administration, neighboring Muslim governments, most of which are ill-disposed toward Israel, will be deprived of much more than that. More material, the Israeli people will be the richer. Why so? Because, as any economist worth his salt knows, foreign aid, being a government-to-government transfer, grows the public sector in the recipient country at the expense of the private, productive economy. Warren Buffet, after all, recently chose to invest $4 billion in Israeli industry, not in the Israeli government. Like Mr. Buffet, Dr. Paul believes the Israeli people possess in abundance what economist Lord Peter Bauer called 'the faculties, attitudes and institutions favorable to material progress.'
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HE WHO PAYS THE PIPER CALLS THE TUNE. For foreign aid, Israeli leaders have been forced to subordinate their country's national interests to Washington's whims. This is bad for both allies. Those of us who want the U.S. to stay solvent—and out of the affairs of others—recognize that sovereign nation-states that resist, not enable, our imperial impulses, are the best hindrance to hegemonic overreach. Patriots for a sane U.S. foreign policy ought to encourage all America's friends, especially Israel, to push back and do what is in their national interest, not ours.
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