Fight Suffering With Foreign Aid

It’s not every day that President George W. Bush wants to dole out $15 billion in foreign aid. But when it becomes a part of his pro-oil, anti-people foreign policy, he’s more than willing to whip out America’s checkbook.

The president wants to give Turkey $15 billion in exchange for access to military bases to use in a war against Iraq. This amount is roughly equal to $265 per American family, but, apparently, we are glad to spend it because it will help ensure millions of barrels of cheap Middle Eastern oil. In great contrast, the American government spends only $10 billion, or about $50 per family, on developmental aid for poor countries that aren’t lucky enough to sit on gallons of crude.

The majority of that aid is also politically rather than developmentally motivated—it is used to bribe nations such as Egypt and Turkey into supporting our policies. Only $1.4 billion, which averages $25 per American family, goes to sub-Saharan Africa, the most needy region in the world. These amounts are miniscule—less than annual late fees at Blockbuster or midnight pizza charges at Noch’s.

Right now, the United States donates less as a percentage of its Gross Domestic Product—only one tenth of one percent—than the other 21 most industrialized nations. Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden all meet or exceed the United Nations’ suggested amount of 0.7 percent. Surveys by the Maryland-based Program on International Policy Attitudes and The Washington Post have indicated that Americans advocate, on average, spending at least five or ten percent of the federal budget on aid. Ten percent would be $223 billion; five percent, $111 billion. Both of these numbers dwarf the $10 billion we actually give in developmental aid, which is less than a quarter of the amount Bush requested in military budget increases.

The United States has a moral obligation to help countries whose citizens are in such dire states of poverty and suffering; we should earmark a much larger portion of the federal budget for developmental assistance and direct aid. And our foreign aid should neither be distributed based on a narrow foreign policy agenda, nor should it be directed at corrupt regimes.

Many would agree that increased foreign aid would be a good thing. The problem is what America can afford in the midst of a shaky economic recovery. The president has proposed a $48 billion increase in military spending for the 2003 fiscal year. He is willing to spend more than an estimated $100 billion on a war with Iraq and hundreds of billions more on tax cuts. And Bush has recently demonstrated his willingness to pump billions of dollars into Turkey. The Bush administration can afford more foreign aid, if it wants to.

In his book One World, utilitarian philosopher Peter Singer presents an interesting analogy for America’s current position: imagine you are walking by a shallow pond and you see child fall through the ice. She is sure to drown if you don’t save her, but if you do it will mean dirtying your pants, ruining your shoes, and being late to an important meeting. Most readers will agree that it would be very wrong to ignore the drowning child.

Back in the real world: $200 is a conservative estimate of the cost of saving a child’s life by donating to nongovernmental organizations such as Oxfam or UNICEF. If we can save enough to donate the money but still decide not to, is it any better than passing the drowning girl and failing to act?

Every day 30,000 children die around the world of preventable causes. Even a modest amount—$50 or $75 per person—would do wonders to reduce these needless deaths. It’s cheap, it’s moral, and it can make a tremendous difference for millions.

—Nicholas F.B. Smyth is an editorial editor.