Microsoft's Bill Gates praises GOP-led Congress for rejecting cuts to global aid

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates praised the Republican-led Congress for rejecting President Donald Trump's cuts to the State Department Budget during a recent talk on philanthropy at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C., PJ Media reported.

The billionaire pointed out that under former President George W. Bush, the foreign aid budget nearly doubled when he created the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief to help African nations hit hard by the disease.

The budget for foreign aid sits between 0.2 and 0.3 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product, which totals about $30 billion, Hub reported.

What did Gates say?

"Hopefully, the U.S. will be more generous as China has become more generous," Gates said. "I hope countries will compete in generosity when it comes to the developing world."

He went on to explain that data shows that the world is better off now than it has been in history.

"Objectively, by almost any metric — the number of people being educated, how long people live, the prevention of disease … even how democratic governments are — this period since World War II has been unbelievable," Gates explained, according to Hub. "There's been [a] reduction in violence, improvement in literacy, improvement of health. The world is a much better place today than ever in its history."

Some of his comments were based on three global statistics published by Max Roser, an Oxford economist and founder of the website, Our World In Data.

Last week, Roser shared the information on Gates' blog.

What are the three statistics?

1. Child deaths have plummeted since 1960 from 20 million annually to nearly 6 million. According to the current rate, 11 children, under the age of 5 die every minute of every day, according to United Nations data, Roser wrote.

"One key reason why we struggle to see progress in the world today is that we do not know how very bad the past was," he said.

Child mortality rates are still at a tragic level, but it's significantly lower than it was just half-a-century ago.

2. The global fertility rate has fallen by 50 percent since 1960, according to Roser. Population growth has also slowed by half with the average fertility rate of two children per woman in the world. Up until the late 1960s, the average number of children per mother was five. Readily available contraception has allowed parents to choose how many kids they want to have.

This data translates to more education for women, fewer child deaths, and higher incomes for families.

3. Between 1990 and 2015, nearly 140,000 people escaped extreme poverty every day. Extreme poverty is getting by on less than $1.90 international dollars per day. The international dollar is the currency unit used by economists and international organizations to compare the values of different currencies. The number and share of people living in extreme poverty are continuing to fall, Roser wrote.

In 1990, more than 1 in 3 or 1.86 billion people lived on less than $1.90 international dollars per day, but by 2015, only 1 in 10 or 706 million lived in extreme poverty.