H.R.2548 - Electrify Africa Act of 2014

First, the United States is broke and should be more concerned about getting it's own house in order than spending money elsewhere.

Second, with Africom up and running, I suspect half the reason for this is to build a better infrastructure so we have something to bomb there. And I'm quite sure it will be a nice, fat government contract for some politically connected rich guy, who will stick the Africans with second rate wires and make off with a fortune.

Third, isn't about time we leave Africa ALONE? How many more Westerners are going to go striding in there with "solutions", only to make it worse? We wrecked their economies, armed them to the teeth and set off ethnic, religious and tribal tensions for decades. Enough! Let Africa settle it's own scores and when it finally gets a few stable governments that ask for aid, then maybe.

If Africa wants to be "powered up" then Africa most likely has the means to do it themselves.

If senators and congressmen want to spend American tax dollars (dollars I'm constantly assured that we DON'T have) then those same senators and congressmen probably need to go find other jobs that don't concern wasting American money on improving foreign countries.

I personally feel the main reason for this is to combat the Chinese and Indian trade in eastern and southern Africa. I went to Kenya a couple of years ago and all the locals were talking about was the fact the Chinese had been building them roads, selling them cheap equipment and vehicles, therefore modernizing the country from their perspective. In return the Kenyan government gave the chines the rights to some of their raw resources. Africa is a gold mine in the eye's of the advanced world, due to the instability of the countries they haven't been able to tap into their natural resources as much as they'd like to and due to that abundance it has grasped the attention of major powers. As to this bill, the USA may help build the African infrastructure but after doing that do you think that the USA would let Africa import more goods from China? I doubt it.

Always nice to see your hard earned tax dollars given to some foreign entity. We need to spend our money on our own issues before worrying about every third world country. We're no longer the country we used to be and it's time to wake up. This bill should be opposed.

This could lead to good things happening in Africa. Taking care of one another might not seem all appealing to most but it is pur responsibility as humans to look out for each other. True our budget is already shot but good things could happen

You have got to be joking. What kind if idiot would think of this. We build schools, put in wells, send food and when we give them a chance to manage the improvements They just let them rust. What good is this going to do for you constituents? Raise the money in your state if you like but do not attach this to any of the rest of us.

I don't oppose spending money to help Africans get access to electricity. Besides being a good thing to do, it will ultimately benefit the U.S. economy. But the billion will probably be aimed at large, centralized, bureaucracy-heavy projects that offer business opportunities for tycoons, rather than smaller-scale technology that can be deployed more effectively over a larger area and help more Africans be self-sufficient. The push will be more toward giving Africans a reason to congregate near large cities where they can be a cheap labor force, and making them become dependent on large utilities.