Re: Gutting USAID

BTR1701  <atropos@mac.com> wrote:

On Feb 17, 2025 at 2:02:22 PM PST, "moviePig" <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote:
>

On 2/17/2025 3:36 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

 On Feb 17, 2025 at 12:18:37 PM PST, "moviePig" <nobody@nowhere.com> wrote:
 

 On 2/17/2025 12:19 AM, BTR1701 wrote:

   On Feb 16, 2025 at 7:56:01 PM PST, "moviePig"

<nobody@nowhere.com> wrote:

  

   On 2/16/2025 6:58 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

     On Feb 16, 2025 at 2:37:29 PM PST, "moviePig" <nobody@nowhere.com>
wrote:
    

     On 2/16/2025 5:00 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

       On Feb 16, 2025 at 12:14:19 PM PST, "moviePig"

<nobody@nowhere.com>

 wrote:
      

       On 2/16/2025 2:35 PM, BTR1701 wrote:

 
     To all the people defending the USAID spending, name any

other country

     that taxes their citizens and sends the money to the

United States.

 
       Umm, the idea is to send money to countries poorer than

the sender...

      
       Really? So Ireland is so poor it needs the U.S. taxpayer to
fund its DEI
       musicals, does it?

 
     Your contention seems to be that other countries should

send the U.S.

     money ...because reciprocity.  My description of the

practice clarifies

     why the U.S., as the richest country, is never a recipient.

    
     The U.S isn't the richest country. Both China and Luxembourg

are richer

 than
     the U.S. as a percentage of per capita GDP.

 
   "With contributions totaling more than €64.4 million to date,

Luxembourg

   is one of the Global Fund's largest donors per capita."
 
   https://www.theglobalfund.org/en/government/profiles/luxembourg/

  
   How does that meet the challenge I presented?

 
 Cutting to the chase: you said Luxembourg should send the U.S. Money.

 
 No, I asked anyone to name a country that taxes its citizens and sends the
 money to the United States.

 
I thought we'd dispensed with the absurdity of an eminently wealthy
nation receiving foreign aid. But maybe only I did.

>
Ireland is wealthy but it somehow expects us to dump our citizens' money on
them.

No, that's a real-life thing. Ireland has super-low corporate income
taxes that gets them in trouble with the rest of the EU, essentially
encouraging multi-national corportions to pretend their foreign earnings
were truly earned in Ireland and not subject to domestic income taxes
where the income was earned.

Hence, multi-nationals formerly based in the United States moved to
Ireland.

If we didn't have an income tax, this wouldn't have happened. Whatever
nonsense foreign aid spending from the United States pales in
comparison.

It's like the joke pre-Trump alleged "fiscal conservatives" in Congress
had about gutting Amtrak's budget to address budget deficits, ignoring
that Amtrak is the single smallest federal program or in the bottom 5.

Meanwhile, the latest USAID scandalous spending to come to light is millions
to Guatemala to pay for sex change operations for Guatemalans. Why are the
U.S. taxpayers paying for sex change operations for *anyone*, let alone some
other country's people? If Guatemala thinks it needs more troons, it can pay
for them itself.

In today's mail, while being informed of close to a 20% increase in the
cost of her Medicare supplement by her insurance company that was
pleased to serve her, my mother was infrrmed of a variety of conditions
that would change her rates like a change of address, or, wait for it...
a change of gender.