When was the last time you handed a wad of cash to a guy who has spent a good amount of time talking about burning your house down? Now, I’m well aware that many of us are more charitable than others, and that’s our prerogative. To each his own.

Some people receive a wave of feel-good bliss when we hand our left-over take-out to the panhandler at the intersection, or drop a couple of crisp bills into the collection basket at a worship service. And that’s fantastic. Do what you want.

Maybe karma is real, and selfless acts of kindness do in fact come full-circle. I’m not particularly convinced, but I’m not certain I’m qualified to proclaim this happens one way or the other either.

But in the larger scheme of things, statists, more specifically leftist statist, imagine a world where we are all our brother’s keeper, and in good times and bad we are bound to one another’s fate. Therefore, we are obligated to keep one another from sinking into the depths of poverty – which are of course <sarcasm> only the result of a system that enables individuals to um…make their own money. </sarcasm>

Couldn’t resist taking a quick stab at leftist “logic”, but let’s move on.

Whether you find this idea appealing or not, American taxpayers are involuntarily the keepers of many they probably do not consider their brothers. After all, it’s kind of hard to forge an imaginary kinship with with folks who burn your nationalist symbol and preach a sudden and violent judgement which would result in your death (google: “jihad”).

The United States Federal Government spent almost $50 billion in foreign aid for fiscal 2011. To be fair, a good portion of this goes to support development in infrastructure and things of that nature in countries that do not share our history of liberated markets and limited government. Whether or not these handouts are actually effective in facilitating similar traditions for self-reliance is up for debate, however this spending becomes really perplexing when we look at where the bulk of the money actually goes.

To be clear, this is not a list of the top requests for foreign aid by country. Some of these are among the largest, however I built this graph to demonstrate what I find to be interesting disparities between countries our government has found more deserving and less deserving of our tax dollars.

Firstly, Egypt is asking for $1.5 billion for fiscal ’14, and they have every reason to expect it seeing as they have received more or less the same amount from the Obama Administration in the past. At the time of writing, the streets of Cairo are not a safe place. Morsi supporters continue to clash with military personnel, as the death toll over the past several days approaches 200. The State of Egypt remains in a tumultuous period of transition from bad to…bad. Taking a couple steps back – Morsi enjoyed support from Western regimes, despite catering to radical Islamists and allowing elements of Sharia Law to enter into Egypt’s legal framework. The United States directly involves itself by funding these movements. If the goal of USAID is to promote sound development, consult the graph and ask yourself: why is Egypt set to receive more money than Somalia?

Now, let’s look at Israel – a state almost universally backed by both major political parties in the United States. With $3.1 billion on the table, Israel receives far more foreign aid than any other country on this list. While they do sit in a hostile region commonly rocked by fundamentalist-driven attacks from neighboring nations, Israel can still boast for having one of, if not the most capable military in the world, albeit a small one. In fact, Israel is ranked by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute as the 8th largest arms exporter in the world.

With these numbers in flux, we have to ask ourselves if foreign aid programs are being used for their face-value purpose of helping the needy, or promoting a political agenda. Ruling out the latter is foolish. Considering the series of fiat-based economic stimulus used by the Obama Administration to put the economy on life support, it’s more than apparent that money is not a factor to statists. With the Federal Reserve at their beck and call, there’s no reason to believe our government wouldn’t do what it needs to do to make the money appear. It doesn’t take a whole lot of number-crunching to figure out that this is not only morally corrupt, but financially unsustainable.

Recently, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has been the most visible in pressuring the executive branch on this issue. With Paul a potential opposition contender for the presidential throne, it will be interesting to see how his efforts play out.