Rossputin.com Rational Thinking About Our World

see "House votes to ban aid to Saudi Arabia" (ABC News, 6/22/07)
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3308064

Last week, the US House of Representatives inserted a provision into a foreign aid bill which would eliminate US aid to Saudi Arabia. On balance, I think it's a good move, although certainly not financially significant given that aid totaled only $2.5 million during each of the last two years.

What occurs to me upon hearing this news is the question "Why not do the same to Mexico?"

For those who are not regular readers, let me be clear that I am not a "close the borders and throw them out" anti-immigration sort. I am very much pro-immigration...legal immigration, that is. I harbor no ill will toward Mexicans individually...not even the illegal ones, as long as they're here to work and not to try to game the system for free medical care, food stamps, or any other taxpayer- or consumer-funded benefit.

Consider the following facts about the Mexican economy:

• The "remittances" of US dollars sent back to Mexico by Mexicans working here are roughly equal to Mexico's oil revenue. (At $20 billion, remittances exceeded oil revenue in 2006, but with the decline in our housing market and the increase in oil prices, I do not believe that will turn out to be the case for 2007.)  According to a San Francisco Chronicle article from last year, "The money Mexican migrants send home almost equals the U.S. foreign aid budget for the entire world, said Arturo Valenzuela, director of the Center for Latin American Studies at Georgetown University and former head of Inter-American Affairs at the National Security Council during the Clinton administration."
• Mexico is the 5th largest oil producer in the world (although their reserves are the 2nd lowest in the top 10.)
• Mexico is listed as an "Upper-middle-income" country by the World Bank
• Mexico is showing substantial decreases in poverty in recent years
• For 2006, Mexico is rated as the 14th largest economy in the world by the IMF

So why does Mexico continue to receive about $30 million a year in direct foreign aid from the US in addition to the military aid we contribute to fight the (fruitless) "war on drugs"?

As if the economics of the situation weren't enough to justify cutting off foreign aid to Mexico, the icing on the cake is the money the Mexican government spends to encourage and aid illegal immigration into the US. Most of you have heard about the comic-book style guide to sneaking into the US which was published and distributed by the Mexican government.

Now, according to the UK's Daily Telegraph, the Mexican government is planning to give hand-held satellite navigation devices to illegal border crossers. The Mexican government says it is for safety, but obviously it makes it very easy for people to find a vulnerable spot in the border and then give their friends the coordinates.

In these and plenty of other ways, the Mexican government is not simply complicit, but is actively involved, in the illegal migration of millions of their citizens into our country. It is not completely without foundation to call this migration an invasion.

Even if you don't go that far, it still strikes me as unconscionable for the United States to be giving money to a perpetually corrupt government which is using that money to send its poorest and least educated people across the border, to be some combination of our labor force and our burden. (Indeed, maybe that migration explains Mexico's dramatic decrease in poverty in recent years.)

If the House of Representatives believes that canceling aid to Saudi Arabia makes sense, I would argue that canceling aid to Mexico makes even more sense.

But given that the current furor over the Senate's Immigration Bill is more than anything about the Democrats and Republicans fighting for the current and future Latino vote in this country (if the Dems have their way, the illegals will get to vote, and whom do you think that would benefit?) I think the chances of aid to Mexico being eliminated are somewhere just south of zero.