Does India Need Our Money?

Did you hear that the finance minister of India told Great Britain that India didn’t need the $440 million in foreign aid the UK earmarked for his increasingly prosperous nation last year? And that the British government  — which serves a people who pay lots of taxes and are very hard-pressed economically at the moment — pathetically begged the Indians to take the cash to avoid politically embarrassing it? Walter Russell Mead makes a great point:

But when countries don’t want the money, we shouldn’t force it down their throats.  The American ambassador to India should ask Mr. Mukherjee if US aid is as useless as Britain’s.  If the answer is yes, let’s grit our teeth, live with the humiliation, and use the money for something else.

According to the Sunday Telegraph, annual US aid to India is around $70 million. I suspect we could put it to good use in this country.