In response to Barbara Arionus’ May 20 letter, “Foreign aid is out of control,” bemoaning the fact that America is spending far too much on foreign aid, welcome to the club. I have been screaming about this for nearly 50 years, but it falls on deaf ears. Way back in 1964, during my first of several runs for Congress, one of the planks in my platform read like this: “Not one cent for foreign aid when there is even one American who is homeless and/or hungry through no fault of his or her own.”
Later, when I read that we had sent $5 billion to Israel only to have them spend $3.5 billion buying Mirage fighters from France, I added to my platform: “Should any form of foreign aid be deemed absolutely necessary, such aid shall be in the form of vouchers redeemable only in America.” What a novel idea, using our generosity to create jobs for Americans.
I was labeled as a radical as I stuck by my platform for many subsequent runs for office. My biggest mistake was trying to use common sense and logic, as they both died years ago.
Bill Hughes
Vancouver
