Thirty-two foreign countries receive more direct aid from the U.S. government than the city of Detroit. This is not to say that Iraq and Nigeria and Mexico don’t need foreign assistance or are undeserving of help from the United States. But when you look at the raw numbers, you start to wonder if some of that cash could be better served in Oakland and Baltimore instead of Karachi and Kabul.
The numbers here are for fiscal year 2014 budget and pulled from ForeignAssistance.gov, which provides data in an attempt to make the federal government more transparent. Foreign assistance is managed by the Department of State, USAID, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the Department of Defense and the Department of Treasury. It includes everything from economic development to education to “peace and security.” Somehow, foreign assistance only accounts for 1 percent of federal spending.
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