Yea I am very militant. I care about the people here. The US is the highest taxed nation on the world for its size, yet we can't even keep up with infrastructure. We need $100 billion a year just to maintain the roads we have. The budget is $91 billion.
Infrastructure spending is about $463 billion a year and we just had a train run through Hoboken NJ due to faulty systems.
Roads and bridges are unsafe and literally have collapsed.
The airports are a mess.
We have to focus on America First and right the ship, then get back to takeninf care of the restoration do the world.
Our foreign aid is in the hundreds of billions a year.
We give Guatamaula alone $150 billion ayear and they have a population of 15 million people. How does that make sense?
Originally posted by Time-ImmemorialWell... not all of them.
Yea I am very militant. I care about the people here.
Originally posted by Time-ImmemorialCan you clarify that?
The US is the highest taxed nation on the world for its size
Originally posted by Time-ImmemorialCan you quote me a cite please? I'm scouring the Googles and can't find anything that puts U.S. Foreign Aid that high. As a percentage of the National Budget (2015's was $3.7 trillion), the U.S. spends less than 1% on Aid. 2014's was the last fully reported year on Foreign Aid. This graphic from USAID shows where the money goes. That year, the U.S. gave a total of $43 billion to aid, and it was actually the lowest amount since 2006.
Our foreign aid is in the hundreds of billions a year.
Originally posted by Time-ImmemorialYou mean $150 million.
We give Guatamaula alone $150 billion ayear and they have a population of 15 million people. How does that make sense?
The parts of your post I didn't quote I generally agree with. Especially about your infrastructure, it's a goddamn disaster. But for comparison's sake, contrast Foreign Aid (<1% of the budget), to the defense budget (16% for 2015). Imagine if that was lowered to even 15%. That would be $42 billion extra you'd have to devote more worthy causes like infrastructure.
Originally posted by Time-Immemorial
Yea I am very militant. I care about the people here. The US is the highest taxed nation on the world for its size, yet we can't even keep up with infrastructure. We need $100 billion a year just to maintain the roads we have. The budget is $91 billion.Infrastructure spending is about $463 billion a year and we just had a train run through Hoboken NJ due to faulty systems.
Roads and bridges are unsafe and literally have collapsed.
The airports are a mess.
We have to focus on America First and right the ship, then get back to takeninf care of the restoration do the world.
Our foreign aid is in the hundreds of billions a year.
We give Guatamaula alone $150 billion ayear and they have a population of 15 million people. How does that make sense?
That all ties in with the social contract of willingness to pay taxes. Unfortunately there's no longer the connection between corporations and the regions where they operate. It used to be that there was an incentive to pay taxes to invest in infrastructure because companies relied on that infrastructure to make them profitable because their factories, head offices etc were all in the same location along with their workforce. Now you have global corporations with factories in developing countries for cheap labour, head offices in western countries for a higher standard of living for the executives and registered offices in tax havens to avoid paying taxes. There's no incentive to abide by the social contract anymore.
You then get the situation where the working class are made unemployed so are taken out of tax generation and an elite who have massive earnings but use loopholes to get out of paying as much taxes as they can. The tax burden gets put on the middle classes who politicians are reluctant to increase taxes on as they're the ones who vote so administrations borrow to plug the spending gap and can't afford to maintain let alone invest in new infrastructure projects and all the while increase the debt and take more money away from the pot available for investment.
Originally posted by Lord Lucien
Well... not all of them.Can you clarify that?
Can you quote me a cite please? I'm scouring the Googles and can't find anything that puts U.S. Foreign Aid that high. As a percentage of the National Budget (2015's was $3.7 trillion), the U.S. spends less than 1% on Aid. 2014's was the last fully reported year on Foreign Aid. This graphic from USAID shows where the money goes. That year, the U.S. gave a total of $43 billion to aid, and it was actually the lowest amount since 2006.
You mean $150 million.
The parts of your post I didn't quote I generally agree with. Especially about your infrastructure, it's a goddamn disaster. But for comparison's sake, contrast Foreign Aid (<1% of the budget), to the defense budget (16% for 2015). Imagine if that was lowered to even 15%. That would be $42 billion extra you'd have to devote more worthy causes like infrastructure.
You are right, I mean billions. I know I have seen other US aid numbers. I will try and find them later on. But for now let's go with what you presented.
If the roads budget is $91 billion and it needs to be $100 billion, where is the rest going to come from? Also the $100 billion needed is just to keep up with maintenance. Not for innovation and to expand with the growing population.
Yes millions, and I know for a fact we went Honduras a shit ton of money like at least $100 million or more since 2012, and they have only 8 million people. Why on earth do they need $100 million for 8 million people. We would be better off giving each person a million dollars so they could gtfo of there.
Originally posted by Time-ImmemorialHere's a breakdown of the $86.6 million the U.S. gave to Honduras in 2012.
Yes millions, and I know for a fact we went Honduras a shit ton of money like at least $100 million or more since 2012, and they have only 8 million people. Why on earth do they need $100 million for 8 million people.
If you were to lump $100 million on to their GDP, then their Per Capita would only rise about $13. It's chump change to give. That wouldn't put a dent in the U.S. defence budget.
Probably around $100 million. These stats seem to need a few years to be reported. If that money was being given to a couple of Hondurans, then I'd be pissed too. But it's not. Again, as an Aid payment to an entire country, it's not very much. It's 1/37,000ths of the 2015 Federal Budget. Insignificant.
I'm all in favour of spending a country's money, ya know, on that country. But I think it's a failing for a superpower as overwhelmingly influential and rich as the U.S. to help literally nobody besides itself. Which is almost what the U.S. is currently doing. Again, you guys are only spending 0.19% of your budget on others. Less than 1/5 of 1/100.