I can’t believe these people govern us

Imara had a great post on Republican rhetoric about cutting foreign aid when they take control of the House of Representatives in January 2011. He didn’t point out a gem of a quote from Kay Granger (R-TX) who is seeking to become the chair of the State and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee:

I want to be sure that we aren’t increasing foreign aid at the expense of our troops.

I think this is notable (in a very sad way) for two reasons.

First, there is no tradeoff between spending money on foreign aid and defense because the budget is not a fixed sum.*

Second, for someone on the Defense Appropriations subcommittee and State and Foreign Operations Appropriations subcommittee, she sure seems confused about the relative levels of spending on each. Below I’ve got a helpful chart that shows these expenditures from the fiscal 2011 budget. In case you are not a math whiz, the graph shows that foreign aid expenditures are about 5% of defense expenditures. Beyond that, most US foreign aid these days goes to Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.** (I wonder why that is?)

I hope the chart reassures Rep. Granger that the US Government currently doesn’t seem to be facing a tradeoff between spending lots and lots on defense and not very much on foreign aid.

Update:

*Let me be more clear. Talking about a tradeoff between aid and defense makes as much sense as a tradeoff between: (1) defense spending versus and spending on the postal service; (2) more defense and larger budget deficits; or (3) more defense and higher taxes. Granger makes it seem as if there is a fixed line item in the budget for “defense and other overseas stuff.” This simply makes no sense.

**Plus Egypt and Israel.