[ejames]

I think there are two important facts to keep in perspective here.

First, polls have shown that U.S. citizens drastically overestimate the amount of the federal budget allocated to foreign aid. As I recall, the average estimate is 25%; the reality is less than 0.1%.

The comparison holds mainly not because Bill Gates is so rich, or because the U.S. is indebted, but because federal budget priorities drastically favor items that are not foreign aid. Those priorities are formed in part because citizens believe that the budget is already giving away huge quantities of money, making proposals to increase foreign aid unpopular.

Second, the amount of money spent is not necessarily a good measure of the amount of aid given. On the one hand, sometimes more money doesn't help; to use an analogy that people here might understand, after a certain point in increasing your budget for paying software developers, you are limited by your ability to find good people, not by your ability to pay them. Likewise, some foreign aid projects - such as HIV eradication in certain African nations - have reached the point where the amount of monetary aid given already exceeds the capacity of local infrastructure to use the resources wisely, and any more would just sit in a bank account somewhere until someone blew it on a useless boondoggle.

On the other hand, some forms of aid or assistance given by the U.S. to friends or allies do not have monetary value, such as military assistance, diplomatic cover, or political advice... and there are material goods that are, for whatever reason, more valuable to the people who receive them than the items would be priced in the U.S. market where they were paid for.

So although this is a true and revealing fact, it's best to not misinterpret it. The reasons for the foreign aid budget being lower than Bill Gates's charity contributions are political, not fiscal; but it's likely that the more important question about foreign aid is the nature and quality of the aid, not the U.S. dollar value for which it was purchased.

[grannyg00se]

"First, polls have shown that U.S. citizens drastically overestimate the amount of the federal budget allocated to foreign aid. As I recall, the average estimate is 25%; the reality is less than 0.1%."

That is very hard to believe. Why would anybody think that the government gives away a quarter of its budget? I would think that a guess would be based that on something reasonable. Like your own personal or family budget for instance. Who would (or could) give away a quarter of their family budget? Not many I'm guessing. I would expect guesses between 1 and 10 percent. Twenty five percent sounds like a polling error. Or a missed decimal place.

[edavis]

From a November 2010 WordPublicOpinion.org poll (http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/pdf/nov10/ForeignAid_...)

"Just based on what you know, please tell me your hunch about what percentage of the federal budget goes to foreign aid. You can answer in fractions of percentage points as well as whole percentage points."

Results: Mean = 27%, Median = 25%

And my favorite part: "What do you think would be an appropriate percentage of the federal budget to go to foreign aid, if any?": Mean = 13%, Median = 10%

[notJim]

I think when you provide people with absolutely no context like this, you're bound to get stupid answers. I feel like if you instead gave a list of things the government should do and asked people to allocate money to each, you would at least get answers that are sane, if not accurate.

And honestly, knowing this kind of stuff is kind of irrelevant anyway. The whole reason we have a representative democracy is so that ordinary citizens can delegate the specifics of government to experts.

[calibraxis]

I think it's more of a matter of disinformation; if US citizens are radically disinformed, that's another barrier to participating in allocating our budgets. The system obviously favors decisionmaking by wealthy elites.

(Affording your own decent healthcare is enough of a feat in the US, that if you're wealthy enough to chip in for some of other people's healthcare too, people think you must be Batman or something.)

As for Bill Gates in particular, apparently one problem is his support for intellectual property, though his foundation. Many consider IP (particularly patents) a major problem for world health; and certainly the US knew better than to respect other countries' intellectual property, while it was developing. (To Charles Dickens' consternation.) (http://keionline.org/microsoft-timeline)

[3am]

Why didn't you just google it? It probably took me less time to find http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2676 than it did for you to type up your response.

This is how dumb the American public is: http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2011/03/20/how-dumb-ar...

[grannyg00se]

I did google it and found some polls but nothing that I would consider reliable data.

Maybe my disbelief is too strong.

But judging from the responses and the indications about average knowledge, I'm starting to wonder whether democracy in such an ignorant society is a good idea. P

[3am]

Democracy, the worst system of government - except for the alternatives. But when ~1/3 of people believe in ghosts, it can test one's resolve :)

[silverlake]

"[Americans] overestimate spending on foreign aid by a factor of 25, according to a 2010 survey." http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020347100457714...

[recursive]

Because the USA is the best country in the world.

[fl3tch]

> after a certain point in increasing your budget for paying software developers, you are limited by your ability to find good people, not by your ability to pay them

Put another way, if 100 people can build a bridge in 3 months, that doesn't mean 1 million people can build a bridge in 13 minutes. Those of us who do science for a living are keenly aware that there's a sweet spot for sample size in any experiment. You want a sample size large enough to give you enough statistical power to validate your hypothesis (if it's true), but beyond that you're wasting money on more mice, or human subjects, or whatever.

For any problem, a certain amount of money / resources will optimize results.

[vacri]

On the other hand, do you really agree with the sentiment of the GP - that foreign aid is already at saturation point?

[fpp]

it is called the functional threshold

[fpp]

The largest share of aid money is not used for treatments or activities in field - in other words does not arrive with those in need. It disappears by wasteful use of resources, massive overheads, corruption and inefficiencies of the participants along the road the money travels from donors to e.g. AIDS patients in country.

The proliferation of such waste has by now reached levels that even former president Bill Clinton and Bill Gates independently in their speeches at the 2010 AIDS conference in Vienna called to focus on efficiency and for reducing excessive bureaucracy, meetings, trips and reports.

On top of that comes dramatic mismanagement and not too few cases of profiteering by those entrusted by the donors with distributing the funds.

You are right that since a few years military assistance e.a. are now also included within so-called Official Development Aid (ODA) budgets to make the overall amounts look better.

Currently large parts of that "business" are as opaque as the international drugs or arms trade. In general the whole thing is full of special interest groups from geo-politics to business to power to organized crime. As a result from US$1,000 tax payers' funds often only US$100-200 arrive with the (officially) intended use.

What really is needed in that "industry" is transparency, accountability, proper management and donors like Bill Gates that go to quite some efforts to assure that the monies actually arrive with those in need.

[cas]

Reading your post reminded me of this interesting TED talk that echo's some of the problems you raise:

http://www.ted.com/talks/andrew_mwenda_takes_a_new_look_at_a...

[teyc]

Not only that, foreign aid is usually tied to spending the money on US services, businesses and products. When it comes down to it, it is a giveaway for businesses under the guise of foreign aid.

[rsanchez1]

I think Bill does try to make sure all his money is well spent though. His foundation doesn't throw money at a problem. They come up with a strategy first for a given problem and execute on that strategy.

[fpp]

Besides the money he had given to the apparatchiks and money wasters of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB & Malaria (GFATM) where - as it became public latest last year - up to 2/3 disappeared with mismanagement, corruption and other abuse of funds (administrative fees not included) - I guess nobody is perfect