Colin Powell: American Leadership — We Can’t Do It for Free

[rangerrebew]

Colin Powell: American Leadership — We Can’t Do It for Free

By COLIN POWELL MAY 24, 2017


At our best, being a great nation has always meant a commitment to building a better, safer world — not just for ourselves, but for our children and grandchildren. This has meant leading the world in advancing the cause of peace, responding when disease and disaster strike, lifting millions out of poverty and inspiring those yearning for freedom.

This calling is under threat.

The administration’s proposal, announced Tuesday, to slash approximately 30 percent from the State Department and foreign assistance budget signals an American retreat, leaving a vacuum that would make us far less safe and prosperous. While it may sound penny-wise, it is pound-foolish.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/24/opinion/colin-powell-trump-budget-state-department.html?ref=opinion&_r=2

[Joe Wooten]

Damn near all of that foreign aid money goes into the pockets of the corrupt shits who run those 3rd world hellholes. It rarely ever reaches those who need it. This is the corrupt leaders whining through Powell about their tit getting cut off.

[IsailedawayfromFR]

What an idiotic article.  I could not even finish it.

He is talking in a vacuum about 'cutting' State dept funding.  We cannot afford 100% of what everyone wants.  Mostly caused by leadership failures like Powell's which caused current debt.

A lib like him must be forced to live within his means, so he must be asked to decide which other departments to cut to fund what he wants to keep.

We can't afford them all.

[truth_seeker]

Damn near all of that foreign aid money goes into the pockets of the corrupt shits who run those 3rd world hellholes. It rarely ever reaches those who need it. This is the corrupt leaders whining through Powell about their tit getting cut off.

But for the elites, a bit of that money is spent wining/dining them.  So God forbid, anything cutting into those perks.

[Smokin Joe]

It isn't our job to lift people out of poverty. That is not what government is supposed to do. It's nice when it functions well enough to not destroy opportunities for people to do their own lifting, better when it fosters an environment that can allow opportunity, but siphoning off the fruits of America's labors to lift someone else? Nope, that ain't it.

If people want to donate, there's a fund for purt'near everything under the sun, and scallywags living off most of those. Opportunity, and all that.