AID: Going to the wrong people
Unemployment benefits.
Why are we giving millions of dollars each year to resource-rich, human rights-violating, corruption-embracing leaders of countries around the world and refusing to give our own job searching, unemployed people assistance?
This is a list of countries receiving foreign aid based on the official development assistance they have received for the given year (not including the military aid). $37 BILLION. Read this please. Some of the wealthiest countries in the world. Oil rich. Mineral rich. Countries that receive aid from the U.S. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_foreign_aid_received).
Perhaps the reason this is so disturbing is that I was just in Ghana, a country that receives (reportedly) $1,800,000,000 in U.S. aid each year. As our ship pulled into the port, we navigated multiple oil rigs. As we docked, there were towering hills of minerals in the port waiting to be loaded on cargo ships. This is referred to as Africa’s “Gold Coast.”
The 15-mile trip from the port into Accra, the capital city of Ghana, took more than two hours because the road is a disaster of huge pot holes, and long patches of no pavement. Traffic was bumper to bumper. Multiple tour guides bragged on the peacefulness of their country. A peaceful, loving people, who live in shanties; in villages of hundreds of shanties.
A short drive out of the city there are beautiful, elegant estates, parks and playgrounds. In the city the streets are lined with vendors selling food, clothing, crafts; barefoot, dirty, children; streets bumper to bumper with very old, smoke belching, ramshackle vehicles. In Ghana you are either very wealthy or very poor.
Corruption is rampant! The tremendous wealth is equaled with tremendous corruption. Horrible human rights violations. In spite of the incredible wealth of minerals, and resources, businesses — major corporations, do not open facilities in Ghana because of the rampant corruption and the failing infrastructure detrimental to operating efficient business. Getting to or from the port is difficult at best.
Why are we giving them hundreds of millions of dollars each year and refusing to give our own job searching, unemployed people assistance?
Fortunately, I have never had to ask for assistance. When I think that a 50-year-old who has an employment history of 30 years is referred to by a member of Congress as a “slacker” because they need unemployment assistance, I am infuriated. Members of Congress have a huge salary, full health-care benefits for themselves and their family, a guaranteed super healthy retirement program and mega corporations standing in line to give them all sorts of “gifts.” From their comfy office, they suggest that to continue unemployment benefits encourages a “slacker” mentality. Congress, so insensitive, so out of touch, so greedy is an embarrassment.
Yes, there are “slackers,” but it isn’t someone who has held a non-governmental job for 30 years.
Congress, if you want the definition of a “slacker,” look in the mirror!
SHIRLEY THAGARD
Hayden