Subsidizing The World

It seems that Joe Biden can't spend U.S. taxpayer money fast enough. 

Of course, can we even honestly say he is spending our tax dollars any more?

We just finished the federal government's fiscal year with a $1.7 trillion deficit and total federal debt now stands at almost $34 trillion. Any additional spending Biden wants to spend is going to come from more federal debt. This will then result in more interest expense for years and years come as we await an ultimate day of reckoning.

Source: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/u-s-budget-deficit-swells-to-1-7-trillion-in-fiscal-2023-as-revenue-tumbles-99b978fc?mod=home-page

Last week Biden promised $100 million of "humanitarian aid" to the Palestinians in Gaza.

Of course, Biden is not even confident that the aid will reach the Palestinian people.

He stated that fact in his televised speech to the nation last Thursday night.

These are his exact words from the transcript of the speech. My emphasis added.

Yesterday, in discussions with the leaders of Israel and Egypt, I secured an agreement for the first shipment of humanitarian assistance from the United Nations to Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

If Hamas does not divert or steal this shipment — these shipments, we’re going to provide an opening for sustained delivery of lifesaving humanitarian assistance for the Palestinians.

Why send $100 million of American money if there is even a small chance it will be diverted to terrorism and war efforts? 

In that speech he also made the case for over $105 billion for what he called national security measures.

Biden wants another $61 billion for Ukraine.

 

That is on top of $113 billion in funds that Congress has already appropriated for Ukraine since its war with Russia began.

This money is not just being used for military equipment and supplies.

The United States is subsidizing small businesses and farmers, funding pensions and social welfare costs, hospitals, schools and the salaries of first responders in Ukraine.

Essentially the entire Ukraine government is being subsidized by the United States.

These are Biden's exact words from a funding request last February as reported by TownHall.com.

"This so-called supplemental funding addresses the needs of the Ukrainian military during the crucial weeks and months ahead.  And it begins — it begins to transition to longer-term security assistance that’s going to help Ukraine deter and continue to defend against Russian aggression," Biden said at the White House. "It’s going to deliver much-needed humanitarian assistance as well as food, water, medicines, shelter, and other aid to Ukrainians displaced by Russia’s war, and provide aid to those seeking refuge in other countries from Ukraine." 

"It’s also going to help schools and hospitals open.  It’s going to allow pensions and social support to be paid to the Ukrainian people so they have something — something in their pocket," he continued. 

Biden also wants $14 billion for Israel for military supplies for things like keeping its Iron Dome missile defense system operating.  $2 billion for Taiwan (the next war?) and $9 billion for humanitarian assistance in Ukraine, Gaza and Israel among other places.

I have to wonder if some of the "other places" that aid might be going to is Afghanistan?

I almost fell out of my chair when I saw this tweet put out by our State Department liaison in Kabul.

The United States is the largest aid donor to the Afghan people?

The same country we abandoned to the terrorist Taliban regime.

The same country we abandoned billions of dollars of military arms and equipment in when we left.

The same country we abandoned U.S. citizens as well as many Afghan nationals who had worked as interpreters for the U.S. military when we left. 

And we are just not providing some aid, we are the largest aid donor in the world to Afghanistan!

It is incomprehensible.

The same can be said for the $6 billion in funds for Iran that were unfrozen by the Biden Administration right before Hamas (an Iranian proxy) massacred 1,400 Israelis and 30 Americans in a surprise attack two weeks ago in Israel.

Of course, that is a small piece of change compared to the oil money that Iran has been able to earn as the Biden administration eased the sanctions placed on Iran by the Trump administration.

Why would Biden do this for a regime that has openly called for the annihilation of Israel and more than once has had its legislature  chanting "death to America" on the floor of the legislative body?

One, Biden has been trying to curry favor with the terrorist regime in order to get a nuclear deal with Iran.

Second, Biden became so concerned with rising gasoline prices on their effects on Democrat election prospects in 2022 that he was eager to get Iran's oil on the world market to dampen prices. 

 

Of course, none of this makes any real sense because does anyone believe that Iran would adhere to any nuclear agreement that was struck anyway?

In addition, the United States has the means to easily solve the oil supply problem itself if the Democrats were not standing in the way of more drilling and pipeline construction.

To provide some perspective to what this has meant to Iran in dollars and cents consider this chart.

This compares Iran's oil exports in billions of dollars from 2018 (before the Trump administration imposed strict sanctions on Iran oil) to the projected 2023 totals.

Source: https://amwaj.media/article/what-do-iran-s-growing-crude-oil-exports-mean-for-the-economy

Iran's oil exports in 2020 were undoubtedly affected by reduced demand and lower oil prices due to the global pandemic in addition to Trump's sanctions.

Higher oil prices have also had some impact in higher export dollar volumes in 2022 and 2023.

However, Biden's easing of the Trump oil export sanctions has resulted in tens of billions of additional revenue to Iran to fund terror across the Middle East.

It is not a difficult stretch to connect this additional revenue that has benefited Iran with the troubles we are now seeing in the Middle East.

It is almost as if the United States has had a hand in subsidizing the terror that has been unleashed because of these mind numbingly stupid policy decisions. 

This meme on X is sadly not far off.

We are spending tax dollars to defend Israel at the same time we are subsidizing those spreading terror.

What is even worse is that most of Iran's oil exports are being sold to China at discounted prices to the global market rate.

The subsidies extend to Communist China.

In Biden's request for $105 billion for national security measures he also stated that he wants $14 billion for the border. That money is not being asked to build a wall. It is primarily going to be used to hire more border personnel to process asylum requests. Some of the money is supposedly going to be used to purchase new inspection machines to detect fentanyl coming in.

To give you an idea of how disastrous Biden's open border policy has been look at the most recent number of apprehensions at the border. Keep in mind that almost all of these illegals were released into the country  and not sent back home.

The New York Times headline says it all.

Compare how many border encounters and apprehensions in the the first three years of the Biden administration to the last year that Donald Trump was in office.

Of course, every one of those individuals who has entered the United States illegally now have to be housed and fed. They need health care and their children need to go to school.

Those burdens are no longer on the countries they left--Venezuela, Mexico, Columbia, El Salvador, Honduras and others.

We now need to subsidize these individuals which also reduces the needs for these other countries to support their own citizens.

It is a noble goal to be the world's humanitarian leader or the world's policeman.

However, at some point, you cannot subsidize the world to attempt to solve every problem.

That should be especially true when every dollar of subsidy today is being done with borrowed dollars. Somehow and someway American taxpayers will have to pay the interest on that debt and be able rollover that debt in the future if the United States of America as we know it is to survive.

With each succeeding year more and more federal spending is going to be squeezed by the need to make interest payments on the debt. It will devour more and more of the federal budget each year.

This graph provides a glimpse of the amount of interest payments on the federal debt that will have to be paid between now and 2030 based on current trends.

Something has to give.

Misguided does not begin to describe where the policies of the Biden Administration are leading us,