As U.S. Drowns in Debt, Obama Sends Money to Foreign Countries

by Don Azarias
February 1, 2012
According to Reuters News, one day after President Barack Obama asked Congress for yet another increase in the debt limit so the federal government can continue to borrow money to stay solvent, he turned around to give Bangladesh billions of dollars in foreign aid. Another $1 billion in aid was offered to the impoverished Asian country over five years to help alleviate hunger and malnutrition, as well as assist in family planning. There is little doubt Bangladesh needs help, but the U.S. has already provided nearly $6 billion in developmental assistance to that country.
Now my question about the President of the United States, Barack Obama, boils down to this and I’m asking the American voters to give me their honest answer: “Can we afford four more years of Obama and his Democratic allies?”
The United States had always been very liberal when it comes to helping those countries, third world or otherwise, in form of billions of dollars in foreign aid. No other sovereign government in the world has done more, to help other countries in need, than the United States’. The U.S. is always there to provide financial and material aid to any countries laid low by natural disasters and other acts of God. And we, American taxpayers, don’t have to be reminded that our very charitable country is well over $15 trillion in debt being underwritten by us, current American taxpayers, and to be amortized later by our children’s children. And, as more and more Americans are going hungry and losing their jobs and homes, the United States can no longer be the generous benefactor that it used to be.
Since its founding almost 250 years ago, the United States had become the richest and most powerful country on the planet. It had always lived up to its creed by helping other countries in need and defending those countries’ freedom. But while the United States is still the leader of the free world, it is no longer the richest. It is no longer a creditor but a debtor nation. It can no longer continue to pass out aid to every cause or need. Suddenly, it becomes too high of a cost for one  country to bear.   
 It’s unconscionable that Obama, after asking Congress for a $1.2 trillion increase in borrowing authority, turned around and started to pledge billions of dollars to Bangladesh while a great number of ordinary American taxpayers are losing their jobs and homes. I’ll say, “this has got to stop.”
We may recall that, just recently, Obama had cost the American taxpayers $535 billion by providing federal loan guarantees to Solyndra, a solar panel company that went bankrupt shortly after receiving the loan. Obama was warned by both government and private auditors about Solyndra’s precarious financial position, but he overruled them and directed the Energy Department to approve the loan just because a big private backer of the deal, Oklahoma billionaire George Kaiser, is a major Obama campaign contributor. The Republican lawmakers had strongly opposed the deal but were prevailed upon by Obama’s Democratic allies on Capitol Hill. I think we are now getting a clearer picture on how Obama played an important role in extending the loan to the now-bankrupt company. Yet, you never see or heard the liberal mainstream media talk about it and held Obama accountable for his transgression which seems like an impeachable offense.
Indeed, the United States is drowning in debts to other wealthy nations, with China owning the bragging rights as the largest creditor of the most powerful country on the planet. China now owns nearly $1 out of every $10 in U.S. public debt. While the United States is also largely indebted to Japan, Russia (yes, Russia), Britain, India and the European Union, it is also heavily indebted to public entities and to domestic and international private individual investors and institutions.
As the U.S. government spends an unprecedented amount of money to fund those unaffordable social service programs legislated by the Obama administration, there is an equally great need to raise the cash to pay for them. This is accomplished through borrowing, whereby the United States sells Treasury securities with varying maturity dates. For investors, the U.S. treasury bills, notes and bonds are considered a safe investment vehicle because they have a guaranteed rate of return, backed by future U.S. tax revenues and good faith. This borrowing adds to the national debt, which has climbed above $15 trillion and is rising every day.
Erskine Bowles, former White House chief of staff under President Bill Clinton and a co-chair of the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (NCFRR), also presented an equally dire prediction: “If we don’t solve the debt problem, we will be paying $1 trillion in interest in 2020. This debt is like a cancer growing within the country. To fix it, we’ve got to make decisions that are politically tough.”
Bowles is right on target. Polls show that majority of the Americans are more concerned about the federal budget deficit than any other problems related to the economy. Where are the jobs created by the $700 billion stimulus program? Why is it that the unemployment rate still remains close to 10 percent? It’s an obvious Obama administration failure.
This country can no longer afford to be a global benefactor without mortgaging the future of our children’s children. I want those Obama and his Democratic Party supporters to hear me out: “Please use your sense of justice and fairness and try to understand that Republicans are only trying to save this great country from financial ruin due to Democrats’ reckless spending of money that we do not have.”
Finding a common ground between Democrats and Republicans——the two major political parties with different plaftorms——could prove to be very difficult. But both, the taxpayers’ and a handful of political leaders’ concern about the depth and breadth of the nation’s financial woes, have made every American focused on adapting the bold measures needed to eliminate government deficit and debt that threaten the survival of the United States as a nation.
One of the most effective ways to solve our country’s financial problem is to eliminate the funding of the foreign aid program, at least, for now. And that includes suspending or cutting billions of cash outlays to Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan, Africa……….and the list goes on and on.