Willco, you're being dense.
First, you ask how the US is financing these donations. This was the initial comment you made:
I was really going to laugh, out loud and such, if the US gave $2 billion. Do we even have $350 million? Not that the victims don't need it or don't deserve it, and that the nation can't find a way to finance such a package, but where exactly is Bush getting the money from?
His personal checking account?
So you're asking where the money is coming from. In response, Socreges posts this:
Someone pointed out that the USA gives Israel $15 million every 9 hours. So if they could just cut them off for a month, perhaps.
Ignoring your disbelief that this is the case (which is true-- we give Israel ~$10M per 9 hours every day of every year; $9.5B in aid per year, divided by 365 days, divided by 24 hours, multiplied by 9-- do the math), you then asked how they finance such aid packages. You posted this:
It's not like the government has a surplus of cash as of right now. In fact, I believe we're up to our eyeballs in debt, so much so that we can taste all the bullshit.
So, they've got to be financing funding projects such as these and I'm wondering how they do it.
If you were just asking a general question about how we go about financing aid packages-- be it emergency aid such as for the tsunami, or yearly foreign aid packages to countries such as Israel, Egypt etc.-- then that's fine. However, if you were at all making the case that this spending is unjustified/excessive (which I believe you were since you said that you'd "laugh out loud" if we gave $2B), then I think it is
perfectly reasonable to bring into the conversation some other (imo) unjustified expenditures, such as our $9B+ yearly aid to Israel, our bloated military budget, or our corporate welfare projects. It's reasonable
in general, and also in particular because you pointed out the fact that we're supposedly "strapped for cash" due to our national debt. Do you "laugh out loud" at our absurd subsidization of Israel each year, since we "don't have the money"? I mean, is Bush getting the money from his "personal checking account"?
Now, it's
true that we're strapped for cash, and I can grant that-- all I ask for is consistency, as I mentioned a few pages ago. The burden of making the case for not adequately funding the humanitarian effort currently underway on the basis of our national fiscal insolvency lies with those making such a claim. In other words, it's up to
you to show that all our other expenditures are fully justified and necessary. Because, as it stands, all it takes to respond to your question-- which is, "how do they finance projects such as this?"-- is for someone to say, "the same way they manage to fund Israel, our military, and our corporations each year despite our insolvency" (none of whom need the money). It's a perfectly legitimate line of argumentation, and you're entirely in the wrong for assuming it's not so.
As for why one focuses on Israel and not the "many other nations" who receive yearly aid from the US, perhaps-- just perhaps-- it's because our annual aid to Israel comprises nearly
40% of our yearly foreign aid for the
entire world. Now, for a nation of under 7 million people, and one which already has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world (nearly equal to Britain's), I find that to be a tad excessive. Especially when one considers that we've already given them over a quarter of a
trillion dollars since 1973. FYI, Turkey (to use your example) receives roughly $200M in aid each year from the US (less than 2% of the amount we give Israel), and the country has a population of ~70M (10 times that of Israel) and a per capita income of about $3000 per year (compared to Israel's $18,500, which is first-world status). Now please tell me why people are not justified in singling out aid to Israel as opposed to aid to countries such as Turkey. Turkey recently received (or is on the verge of receiving) additional aid due to the war in Iraq, and also to bail out their economy, which was in grave trouble from what I gathered, but the $200M figure is for the regular, annual aid over the past decade excluding such exceptional circumstances, same as the ~$10B yearly figure for Israel is.
Now, I'm not asking you to justify why we give them so much aid, because frankly it's not justifiable in any sense imo. Some aid? Sure. But not $9B+ per year (some estimates actually put this figure at $14B per year, if you include all loan guarantees). If we were giving another relatively prosperous, sparsely populated nation ~$10B per year in aid, I'd say the same exact thing, because I feel that it's
entirely unjustifiable.
As for the precise answer to your question-- about how the US finances aid packages etc. despite our debt-- you'd have to ask someone more well-versed in economics than myself. I'd imagine that it involves us borrowing against our assets as well as foreign nations investing in our economy somehow (buying bonds etc.). But, again, it does nobody any good to cry about "how we're going to finance this aid" when we finance a great many other unnecessary things all the time despite our debt. If you're that concerned, let's start curtailing unnecessary expenditures
across the board, not only when it suits our politics--
that's the point that people are making.
It could undermine the UN efforts though, and just complicate things. Everyone should be working together.