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Making Ignorance Work for Us

Scott Lemieux revisits the fun fact that not only is foreign aid the only thing in the budget that the public consistently wants cut, but the public consistently seems to massively overestimate how much foreign aid there is.

I’ve always wondered if there isn’t an opportunity here for people who support a major increase in development assistance to do some good. What if Barack Obama and John Kerry stood shoulder-to-shoulder and announced that “in light of massive deficits and a poor job market here at home, we’re proposing to slash foreign aid to slightly less than three percent of the federal budget.” Available evidence suggests that the majority of the public thinks this would be a large cut and even thinks it might go too far in terms of cutting back on what we spend helping others. In reality, it would be a giant increase.

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