On the eve of the G-8 Summit, ex-president Bill Clinton is telling European audiences that the U.S. is stingy with its foreign aid dollars - and that Americans think they contribute more than they actually do.
"In America, for example, we have always been hampered in getting adequate budgets for international assistance by the fact that the American people believe we give much more than we do," he told BBC Radio 4 on Thursday.
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"They think we give about 3 percent of GDP," the ex-president continued. "They think we give 10-15 percent of the budget. They think we ought to give about 5 percent."
But Clinton claimed: "We don't give anywhere near that. We don't give anywhere near 3 percent but they think we do."
Clinton blamed the GOP Congress and the Bush administration, which pledged $15 billion in aid to Africa in 2003, for being shortsighted when it came to foreign assistance.
"President Bush and the Republicans, when I was president, 100 members of the new Republican Congress after the '94 election did not have passports," he recalled. "They thought all foreign aid was wasted. They did not believe in anything."
He took credit for fostering a different attitude toward foreign aid while he was president.
"By the time I left, we had dramatic consensus across parties for the massive debt relief we did for the millennium in 2000," he told the BBC.
Clinton said that if the U.S. contributed its fair share, "we can have a whole new paradigm for development assistance from the rich to the poor."
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