Propaganda at people's cost: US State Department leads world PR expenses

The US government has been accused of enormous expenses to self-aggrandizement. A corresponding report has been prepared by a nonpartisan, non-profit organization Open the Books. The document, titled, The Department of self-promotion: How Federal Agency PR spending advances their interests rather than the public interest, reveals main directions of the US State Department budget spendings, that advance its own propaganda interests.

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Authors of the report note that they used data of the US tax statistics, as well as information on the US government procurement since 2007 to 2015.

During this time $4.5 billion were spent by the State Department to 'monitor media, broadcast, video, and website' and 'news clipping services', that ranked the US self-promotion expenditures second largest in the world.

$37 million were spent on polling foreigners' opinions, including those in England, Poland, Italy, Germany, Spain, and France. $1 million was spent on 'speech writing and editing'.

The Open Books representatives point out that they would like to add more transparency to the US government and show which sums are spent on the satisfaction of personal interests rather than the public ones.

Pravda.Ru reported that Benjamin Ziff, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs stated that the White House aimed to increase its expenditures to propaganda against Russia in order to defend themselves from possible virtual attacks.

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