A 2 Trillion Dollar Deficit: How Much Of It Is Being Shipped Overseas?

I do believe in foreign aid, free trade, and helping out other nations when it’s in America’s best interest. However, at a time when our country is running nearly a 2 trillion dollar deficit, I think we need to be asking some very hard questions about why we’re borrowing tens of billions of dollars only to ship that money off to other countries.

I’m not going to say that we should never do that — clearly, we should at times — but, I do question the amount of tax dollars that is being sent elsewhere when Americans are hurting and we’re running a staggering deficit.

That certainly applies to the Cash for Clunkers program, where the top cars that are being traded for are Japanese, but there are many other examples.

How about our foreign aid?

The U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday approved a $48.8 billion spending bill to bolster U.S. foreign policy and aid efforts, including to allies like Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The legislation includes $2.7 billion in foreign aid for Afghanistan and $1.5 billion for Pakistan as they fight Taliban militants. It also provides $2.2 billion for Israel, another close U.S. ally, for the fiscal year 2010 that starts October 1.

The legislation is $3 billion less than the $52 billion requested by President Barack Obama, with cuts in funds for items such as overseas diplomatic operations and money for agricultural assistance and improved food security.

Now, should we close the checkbook for all of that spending? No, but given our financial situation, shouldn’t we be dramatically cutting back?

Moreover, is this something that we should be doing?

Last month, Congress approved $108 billion in credit lines for the IMF as it helps countries with the economic crisis.

How about the TARP money that was sent overseas? That was too much to swallow, even for Dennis Kucinich,

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D.-Ohio) said on the House floor Thursday that TARP bailout funds loaned to banks are ending up overseas. Citigroup has sent $8 billion to Dubai, Bank of America has sent $7 billion to China and JPMorgan Chase has sent $1 billion to India. “Banks are taking our tax dollars and they’re shipping them abroad,” Kucinich said. “It’s time that we started to take care of things at home. It’s time we started to ask the Treasury to keep track of these TARP funds.”

Then there’s what has been going on with Government Motors:

General Motors Corp. will shift more production of vehicles bound for the U.S. market to China, Mexico, South Korea and Japan, but will keep total imports at roughly one-third of all sales here.

In a confidential 12-page presentation to members of Congress, obtained by The Detroit News on Friday, GM said it will boost U.S. sales of vehicles built in those four countries by 98 percent — or about 365,000 vehicles — while shrinking production in Canada, Australia and European countries by about 130,000 vehicles.

GM also disclosed it will start importing vehicles made in China in 2011, reaching 51,546 vehicles in 2014. Imports from South Korea to the United States will jump from 36,967 vehicles in 2010 to 157,126 in 2014.

…GM CEO Fritz Henderson met with members of Congress Tuesday and Wednesday and discussed the production plans. His presentation said that UAW plants “share in the growth of volume” in “an equitable way.” Henderson plans to brief the media Monday.

“Plant closures in the U.S. are driven by a combination of canceling regional brands (like Saturn, Hummer and Pontiac) and market decline,” the presentation said, stressing that the company needs to “build what we sell and can build economically.”

So, we had an ill-advised government takeover of General Motors and as a result, American plants are being closed while they’re opening more plants in China, Mexico, South Korea and Japan?

It’s not just the cars either. It’s the batteries.

Nearly half of the $2.4 billion in federal grant money awarded Wednesday to stimulate the U.S. economy and boost the production of hybrid and electric vehicles went to six companies with ties to places as far away as Russia, China, South Korea and France.

You can go on and on with these examples.

According to Congressman Peter King, this health care plan the Democrats are trying to push through Congress would cover 5.6 million illegal aliens. They’re not Americans. They’re not even supposed to be in this country, but we’re going to put our children’s children deeper in debt to the Chinese to pay for their health care?

Tax cheat Charlie Rangel is working to funnel stimulus money,

The long and short of it is that Chairman Rangel is defending a provision of the bailout that allows the government of the Virgin Islands to subsidize (paid for with US excise taxes) the building of facilities for Diageo, the makers of Captain Morgan rum. Oh. And Rangel has a lot of donors in the Virgin Islands.

We’re even paying for abortion in other countries,

President Reagan first established the pro-life Mexico City Policy in 1984. Named for the city where it was announced, the policy declared that American tax dollars would not fund international organizations involved in performing or promoting abortions abroad. After its rollback by President Clinton, President G.W. Bush reinstated the policy as his first executive order. President Obama reversed the policy through an executive order on Friday, January 23, 2009.

For the third time, I’m going to note that I don’t believe that every American taxpayer dollar going overseas is a dollar ill spent. That’s not the point. The point is that our nation is deep in debt and in a recession: so shouldn’t we be paying a lot more attention to how much of our money is being sent overseas and how much bang we’re getting for our buck?

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