It's amazing how much "humanitarian aid" we have available for Venezuela, and not Puerto Rico

[ComradeRedBoilermaker]

Does anyone else notice or care about this? The coffers are endless for foreign intervention abroad, but a territory directly administered by the US government is continuously put on the back burner.

Why isn't this a bigger scandal? Why don't we have money to rebuild Puerto Rico, but we do have money to provoke violent confrontation with the Venezuelan government? Why don't we have money for food stamps, but we do have money for a border wall? Why don't we have money for expanding medicare, but we do have money for an endless deployment in Syria? And Afghanistan?

 

[BoilerJS]

Does anyone else notice or care about this? The coffers are endless for foreign intervention abroad, but a territory directly administered by the US government is continuously put on the back burner.

Why isn't this a bigger scandal? Why don't we have money to rebuild Puerto Rico, but we do have money to provoke violent confrontation with the Venezuelan government? Why don't we have money for food stamps, but we do have money for a border wall? Why don't we have money for expanding medicare, but we do have money for an endless deployment in Syria? And Afghanistan?

He here is a list of social programs and their cost to the tax payers.
I can't answer the Puerto Rico question but don't think for a minute that the US is t gracious.
Total US budget 4.4 Trillion.
Net 85 Billion, Snap 85 Billion, HAA 55 Billion, SSI 60 Billion,
Pell Grant 40 Billion, TANF 15 Billion, Child Nutrition 22 Billion,
Head Start 12 Billion, Jobs Training, 22 Billion, WIC 50 Billion,
Child Care 12 Billion, LIHEAP 3 Billion, Life Line 2 Billion.
This is only the Federal portion add 25% to this for State Matches and another 5% or more for County and local matches and this amount
Comes to 460 some Billion add Medicaid 560 Billion, Medicare 440 Billion. Now add local contributions such as Pauper Council, Public Transportation discounts, Translated requirements etc.
Somewhere over a 1.5 Trillion total in support for the poor.
In comparison the total military budget is 640 Billion.
Just some numbers to chew on.

 

[ComradeRedBoilermaker]

He here is a list of social programs and their cost to the tax payers.
I can't answer the Puerto Rico question but don't think for a minute that the US is t gracious.
Total US budget 4.4 Trillion.
Net 85 Billion, Snap 85 Billion, HAA 55 Billion, SSI 60 Billion,
Pell Grant 40 Billion, TANF 15 Billion, Child Nutrition 22 Billion,
Head Start 12 Billion, Jobs Training, 22 Billion, WIC 50 Billion,
Child Care 12 Billion, LIHEAP 3 Billion, Life Line 2 Billion.
This is only the Federal portion add 25% to this for State Matches and another 5% or more for County and local matches and this amount
Comes to 460 some Billion add Medicaid 560 Billion, Medicare 440 Billion. Now add local contributions such as Pauper Council, Public Transportation discounts, Translated requirements etc.
Somewhere over a 1.5 Trillion total in support for the poor.
In comparison the total military budget is 640 Billion.
Just some numbers to chew on.

http://fortune.com/2018/11/12/trump-cut-federal-relief-puerto-rico/

The government has spent 6 billion dollars on PR disaster relief, and they are already talking about cuts.

And that's really the point of my post. Not that money isn't being spent, but that we are endlessly questioned as to why certain money is being spent and not others. Every study conducted on the subject has shown that money spent on SNAP is an efficient allocation of resources that generates good ROI for the economy as a whole. But it's one of the most popular programs to be villainized in the media and a popular target for cuts.

I am asking why does a single American news organization not apply this same standard of scrutiny to American imperial boondoggles? Money spent on those social programs you mentioned is overwhelmingly money well spent, and yet they are in the only programs that get scrutinized for aggressive cuts.

 

[TwinDegrees2]

Does anyone else notice or care about this? The coffers are endless for foreign intervention abroad, but a territory directly administered by the US government is continuously put on the back burner.

Why isn't this a bigger scandal? Why don't we have money to rebuild Puerto Rico, but we do have money to provoke violent confrontation with the Venezuelan government? Why don't we have money for food stamps, but we do have money for a border wall? Why don't we have money for expanding medicare, but we do have money for an endless deployment in Syria? And Afghanistan?

The PR administrators and elected officials screwed that one up. We need to help our neighbors.

 

[TopSecretBoiler]

The situations are not directly comparable either in cause, scale or potential regional fallout...but of course you would try to make an apples to apples comparison.

 

[Bruce1]

According to news reports we are trying to get $20 million in aid to Venezuela. I couldn’t find my more data than that.

I edited this after rereading the article you linked. It says we have already committed Billions to Puerto Rico.