Letter: Foreign aid helps our arms industry — what about our homeless?

April 25, 2024

The Senate recently passed a $95 billion foreign aid package funding Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan in a bipartisan vote and sent the legislation to President Joe Biden’s desk on Tuesday. There was a time when “foreign aid” meant help to poor people in poor countries. Now it is essentially a payoff to the U.S. firepower industry and the Israeli lobby. 

When everyone is railing about homelessness in America, why isn’t there a discussion about how these foreign aid packages are exacerbating our homelessness issues? Why do people blindly agree to let our tax dollars flow out of the country and at the same time, want to demonize cities and towns that are trying to navigate a very difficult situation.

The homelessness problem, among other complex reasons, is being magnified by government representatives that are blindly supported by the same people simply because of party labels.

We desperately need some critical thinking and the courage of both sides to honestly discuss “all” sides of this issue and start reallocating our resources.

Chris Millias  

Ashland

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