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Can the U.S. afford to provide $100 billion to other countries with climate change policies?
We are skeptical.
The United States, as we noted in our editorial in last Thursday's edition, is expected to have a budget deficit of $1.15 trillion in 2022 and has a federal debt greater than $30 trillion.
We have Americans -- working class and middle class -- confronted by the pressures of inflation and, particularly lately, rapidly rising gasoline prices who could benefit greatly from tax relief.
Instead of addressing either our upside-down federal budget or tax relief, our federal government is giving $100 billion to foreign countries.
Further, the Associated Press article reporting this commitment gives no indication which countries will be eligible for these U.S. tax dollars. Are there restrictions in place to block dictatorships from receiving U.S. funds? Are there provisions to ensure the countries being funded by U.S. taxpayers respect their peoples' liberties? Or will we be helping countries around the world pay for environmental projects -- which we acknowledge may include some worthwhile projects -- only so the countries can spend their own revenues on oppression and denial of peoples' God-given freedoms?
Climate change should not become an excuse to neglect either fiscal responsibility and prudence or our country's Constitutional commitment to individual liberty.