Carl Dagher0:00 Uh what's up, y'all?0:02 Um today I wanted to bring up an issue that has been kind of um causing a lot of political kind of discontent in the US government, and that is uh US aid to foreign countries.0:17 Um I I did a deep dive into this when I read a news article that said the United States spent 10 million dollars to Mozambique for circumcisions.0:28 Um I understand the humanitarian aspect of it, but um as like regarding HIV and AIDS prevention, but you know what we we send a lot of money to a lot of countries for kind of trivial things that you know you you would expect them to handle on their own.0:47 And I understand the US is a world superpower, but we have our own issues that we need to worry on.0:51 We are also severely in debt.0:54 Um a lot of these donations are extremely political.1:02 Um I I saw that we donated $70,000 to Ireland for a DEI musical.1:08 Um I think forty-seven thousand dollars to Colombia for a transgender musical.1:15 Um we sent millions of dollars to Egypt to for them to promote their tourism industry.1:22 Uh and and you know, all this gets swept under the rug when you have these big bills.1:26 Like they they sneak a lot of cheeky little donations to other countries because they have interests there.1:33 And that's that kind of highlights what what's going on with our government is that this day and age.1:38 We're we're really just our Congress is filled with puppets that are controlled by other governments for the most part.1:45 Um not gonna speak more on that, but it's clear to see if we're really sending thousands of dollars to other countries to make musicals that um promote DEI, I think we're doing something wrong.1:57 And and yes, it may not be that money in the grand that much money in the grand scheme of things, but the principle of it is we're not worried about ourselves as a country, and and that's that's what leads to the downfall of great nations.2:09 I mean, you see that with what happened with Rome.2:11 They got too worried about outside powers that they forgot was going on internally, and it essentially collapsed.2:16 So I think that's something our government needs to clean up.2:18 We can't keep sending millions of dollars to these countries just for them to honestly the money doesn't even get distributed properly because of the corruption.2:27 So yeah, we're trying to be the nice guys, but at the end of the day, you can't always be the nice guy.2:32 So that's all I gotta say on that.2:34 Um, and yeah, I'd like to hear y'all's opinions.
Gaines Gunn0:00 Carl, I think this topic is incredibly interesting.0:03 I think it's really true that the United States spends way too much money internationally.0:08 And I think we are involved in way too many things internationally.0:11 I think we need to pull back and focused on our domestic things.0:15 But I will say, I think while we do overspend internationally, I think we also completely overspend domestically.0:23 And I think we found this out with the Doge program, the Department of Government um efficiency.0:29 For example, in 2015, um looking back, the Doge, the judge found this that the Air Force was spending $1,300 for each reheatable coffee cup on an aircraft.0:43 I think that's ridiculous.0:44 I'm like, why are we spending the amount of money that would help tons of people on heating reheatable cups on an aircraft?0:56 I also think um I read recently that one of the governors um in one of these um cities, I don't exactly know which city it was, maybe Chicago or Philadelphia.1:07 They were spending pretty sure it was around five million dollars of their um budget on coffees and lunches.1:16 Um, you know, that I didn't know that you needed that much money to go out to to lunch, and I didn't know that our government needed to pay for your lunches.1:24 Um ridiculous.1:26 So I do think that the idea of cracking down on spending in general, um, internationally and domestically, um, I think that would be incredibly helpful to the United States, especially considering how much dealt we're in.1:39 And actually, this popped up on the website I was on.1:42 Um, it's below the one that I just spoke about.1:45 Apparently, um USAID reportedly awarded 20 million dollars to a nonprofit called Sesame Workshop to create a show called Alan Sum Sim Sim Iraq as an effort to promote inclusion and mutual respect across ethnic, religious, and sectarian groups.2:07 Um I think this is also incredibly concerning that we're spending this much money on inclusion events.2:17 Um, like you said, the um the drag race in Columbia.2:22 I just I just think the spending, it's like we're throwing money at issues that aren't necessarily necessary.2:30 And it and it's hurting the American taxpayer, it's hurting me, it's hurting all of us who are here living and paying taxes to our government.2:37 We don't want to see that money going to these places.2:41 Okay?2:41 I'd rather have the money in my pocket and give the money where I want to see it go.
Wesley Joyce0:00 Carl and Gaines, I think you both bring up some valid points here.0:03 Um, and I think either way you look at it, the spending is ridiculous at home and abroad, um, whether it's on things that the right may want or the left may want.0:13 Um when these people have these blank checks, not necessarily blank checks, but this she just these checkbooks are right from.0:20 Um they seem to take it and run with it.0:23 And I really I kind of just want to say that I think that that just speaks the state of politics in America right now.0:31 Um things get so heated um between the cycles.0:36 Like it's a very inflammatory um system that we have, and it's there's a lot of hatred and spite involved with it in a lot of the things these do.0:46 And sure, they may be spending money to undermine um fundamental um differences, but at the end of the day, it's just gonna keep going back and forth, and people are just gonna like they, you know, it'd be doing the country more good to quit spending and to help our debt.1:07 Um, but you know, you only get the office for four years, so you get re-elected.1:12 You know, it's easier to get re-elected when you spend a bunch of money on people than it is to get re-elected if you force your country to save and pay off some of their debt.1:25 So I don't know, I think it um it's an issue with both sides, and I'm not really sure how it gets solved.