U.S. Government foreign aid was increased dramatically under the “stingy” George W. Bush administration, reversing a steady downhill trend over the previous four decades. Source: USAID Greenbook on U.S. Overseas Loans and Grants.
U.S. Government foreign aid was increased dramatically under the “stingy” George W. Bush administration, reversing a steady downhill trend over the previous four decades. Source: USAID Greenbook on U.S. Overseas Loans and Grants.
That hockey stick effect is related to the Iraq/Afghan wars. The spike in expenditures is partly aid-for-participation deals with other countries to bring them into (or hold them in) the “coalition of the willing”. That is, it’s not money for development given in the spirit of altruism. To be fair, however, it also is due to the fact that Bush did triple aid to Africa, which seems to have been given with honest intent. I think a conservative would agree that in meeting policy objectives, how much money is spent means much less than how it is spent. Where a progressive and conservative would disagree in this case, for example, is the emphasis of A to the point of exclusion of B&C in the ABC anti-HIV policies. Thus, the graph is not all that substantively informative at the end of the day without an explanation of where the money went.