The Cave: FoxNews.com | Tracking Your Taxes: Sending Billions in Aid to Despots and Wealthy Nations

Thursday, September 24, 2009

FoxNews.com | Tracking Your Taxes: Sending Billions in Aid to Despots and Wealthy Nations

The U.S. spends billions in taxpayer money on foreign assistance each year, but large pieces of the $36.7 billion aid budget will be going to countries whose leaders attack the U.S. -- and to others that are already rolling in dough.

The U.S. is expected to spend about $36.7 billion on its foreign aid budget next year, but large chunks of that money will be going to countries whose leaders openly vilify the U.S. -- and to others that are already rolling in dough.

Americans went broke last year filling up their tanks thanks to high gas prices leveraged by OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Yet this year, the State Department budget provides millions to oil-rich kingdoms relishing huge profits, like Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

Ever-increasing spending on aid strikes some foreign policy experts as unwise -- and a monumental waste of money.

"We still cannot point to any relationship between foreign aid and growth, between foreign aid and the right kinds of policies or institutions that create prosperity," said Ian Vasquez, director of the Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity at the Cato Institute.

Click here for video.

Much of the foreign aid budget is spent on military, disaster and humanitarian assistance. But some of the spending for 2010 will be heading to countries where dictators rule:

$98 million to persuade Kim Jong-il of North Korea to give up nuclear weapons
$20 million for political prisoners and political rights in Castro's Cuba
$6 million to promote civil society in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela
$500,000 for border security in Muammar al-Qaddafi's Libya
$26 million to help train police in Evo Morales' Bolivia
$56 million to support the rule of law and human rights in Vladimir Putin's Russia, arguably one of the world's richest nations