This will be a debate on foreign aid and USAID.
I'm Josie, I have a broken camera.
I'm the red headed libertarian with Tim Kass Media and I will
be the moderator tonight. Tonight's debate features Cenk
Wieger, founder of The Young Turks, advocating in favor of
foreign aid, Mike Benz, executive director of Foundation
of For Freedom Online, supporting reform of foreign
aid, and Keith Knight, top editor at the Libertarian
Institute arguing for abolishing for an aide.
Welcome, gentlemen. Thank you for having us.
My pleasure. So we will not be doing any
formal time keeping tonight. So I just ask you to be mindful
of each other speaking time. This debates going to be free
form and I'll be here to guide the discussion behind that still
picture of me. All right, So does everybody
agree to these terms? Yes.
Wonderful. Sure.
Thanks guys. So I'm going to kick this off by
asking each of you a position defining question and I'm going
to start with Keith. Keith, what are the primary
reasons you believe foreign aid should be completely abolished?
When I say American foreign aid, I'm generally referring to
resources given or lent by the United States government to a
foreign government or group of persons in another country.
I want to make the case that all foreign aid should be abolished.
According to foreignassistance.gov, as of
June 13th, 2025, the US government has over $100 billion
in foreign aid obligations consisting of more than 20,000
activities taking place in 205 countries, primarily you,
Israel, Egypt, and Jordan. According to Pew Research, the
American government spent $1.07 trillion on foreign assistance
between 2005 and 2024. Foreign aid allows the US
government to unilaterally put obligations on their domestic
population US and use those funds to increase their power
and social standing in other parts of the world.
The essential issue with government provision of foreign
aid is the creation of the service payment split.
The people who provide the service do not have to answer to
those paying for it. In the case of foreign aid,
there's a split between those who pay taxpayers, those who
provide the service service politicians and Ng OS, and those
who receive the service. In short, those who have the
power to control foreign aid funds do not face the discipline
necessary to provide high quality services at a reasonable
cost, since the people paying for it do not have a recognized
right to stop paying if they don't find value in the project.
This would be the equivalent of saying Blockbuster, Myspace,
Sears, Toys-R-Us, and Borders could have resolved their
business issues if only they had access to the funds of
involuntary military investors known as taxpayers.
Instead of companies getting money by meeting consumer
demand, foreign aid encourages companies to reallocate scarce
resources towards complying with the desires of politicians.
Or in the words of Michael Mcclintock, these funds turn
entrepreneurs away from pleasing customers and into instruments
of statecraft. Not only do politicians with
access to trillions of dollars not face the necessary
incentives to provide quality aid, but they lack the knowledge
knowledge of how and where to spend the money effectively.
According to the Global Sent, the Center for Global
Development, total aid given to Africa from wealthy countries
since 1960 comes to $4.7 trillion in 2013 prices.
Even if politicians really wanted to bring democracy and
prosperity to Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Ukraine, they don't
know how countries become prosperous.
If they had such knowledge, we wouldn't see the homelessness
and poverty that can be found in many areas of the United States,
an area where the same U.S. politicians have much more
control and influence. The American people also
directly bear the cost of these expenditures.
When governments don't have enough money to fund a foreign
activities through taxing their domestic population, they issue
Treasury notes, often purchased by the Federal Reserve, who then
prints money and increases the amount of dollars in
circulation. Increasing the supply of money
by trillions of dollars over decades to fund foreign
activities results in each dollar Americans hold in their
savings accounts being worth less than it otherwise would
have been, leading to the inflated prices Americans
experience today. Notice foreign assistance is not
a neutral tool that can be used for good or evil, but a
structurally unsound way to achieve national security or
economic growth. Consider another unintended
consequence of foreign aid. Lawrence Wright wrote a book in
2006 titled The Looming Tower, Al Qaeda and the Road to 911
from page Three O 7. On April 11th, 1996, when
Mohamed Atta was 27 years old, he signed a standardized will he
got from the AL Quds Mosque. It was the day Israel attacked
Lebanon in Operation Grapes of Wrath.
According to one of his friends, Otto was enraged and by filling
out his last testament during the attack, he was offering his
life in response. When politicians have access to
hundreds of billions of dollars, they do not not have the
knowledge or incentive to make sure these funds are used in
such a way to keep Americans safe.
Consider the words of US Assistant Secretary to European
and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland.
In December of 2013, we've invested over $5 billion to
assist Ukraine in these and other goals that will ensure a
secure and prosperous and democratic Ukraine.
American politicians should not have the capacity to spend
billions of dollars considering their previous pet projects have
resulted in tremendous devastation.
To summarize my position, foreign aid allows politicians
to spend the money Americans work for with virtually no
accountability, and voters do not have the time or mental
bandwidth to pressure politicians into spending the
money in a desirable manner. Therefore, reforming foreign aid
is a fool's errand because it empowers people without the
knowledge or incentives necessary to achieve their
goals. Thank you.
Thank. You so much, Keith.