Chapter 5 > The Global Economy > Foreign Aid
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Chapter 5 > The Global Economy > Foreign Aid |
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In line
with the high priority given to addressing domestic economic concerns and for
spending on domestic programs, Americans do not generally consider giving economic
aid to other nations a high priority. Only a modest majority of 54% says it
favors giving economic aid on the whole, with 38% opposed (see Figure 5-8).
As discussed in Chapter 1, asked whether economic aid to other nations should
be expanded, cut back, or kept the same, 48% say they want to cut back, 35%
say keep it about the same, and just 14% want to expand economic aid. This is
a consistent, long-term finding in Chicago Council and other surveys.
Interestingly, it seems that one of the most important reasons that so many Americans say they want to cut foreign aid is that they drastically overestimate the amount of money that is being spent on it (see Figure 5-9). When asked what percentage of the federal budget they think goes to foreign aid, the median estimate is an extraordinary 25% of the budget, more than 25 times the actual level of just under 1%. Only 2% of
Americans give a correct estimate of 1% of the budget or less. When asked how much of the federal budget should go to foreign aid, the median response is a remarkable 10% of the budget, or more than 10 times as much aid as is currently being given. Only 13% of Americans say that the appropriate percentage would be 1% or less.
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Given these extreme overestimations—estimates considerably larger than the entire U.S. defense budget —it is not surprising that many people propose cutting back from what they believe to be a very high current level of spending.
Another reason for the desire to cut foreign aid in general terms could be that people associate it more with types of aid that they support less—such as aid for strategic purposes to countries that are not necessarily poor as well as military aid—as opposed to aid for the humanitarian purposes that they most roundly endorse. As discussed in Chapter 4 and in the following section, when the purposes of the aid are made explicit, Americans make sharp distinctions and, indeed, show strong support for certain, especially humanitarian, types of foreign aid.
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