[rmc]

0.5% of the US federal budget goes to Israel as aid money. That might skew the figures a bit.

[skurry]

I found that number hard to believe, so I looked it up. In 2007 (the most recent figure I could find) the US sent $2.5 billion to Israel. The total budget was $2800 billion. So it was more like 0.09%.

[rmc]

Huh. My source was the New York Times ( http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/08/opinion/sunday/the-coffin-... ) who stated " all foreign aid accounts for about 1 percent of federal spending — and that includes military assistance and a huge, politically driven check made out to Israel, a wealthy country that is the largest recipient of American aid. True humanitarian aid constitutes roughly half of 1 percent of the federal budget" so I thought it was ½% of US budget went to Israel.

[bgilroy26]

"Federal budget" is a multivalent term. It's more likely that 2.5 billion was .5% of discretionary spending for that year.

When you take the prior obligations of Social Security, etc. the budget gets much smaller.

[cbr]

I think you're misreading the quote. It says foreign aid is 1% of federal spending, only half of that is true humanitarian aid, and the country that receives the most aid, humanitarian and not combined, is Israel.