Friday, December 24, 2004
America the Greedy and Cruel?
CNN CROSSFIRE - Aired December 23, 2004 - 16:30 ET (See Transcript)
BEGALA: The Bush administration is cutting its contributions to food aid for poor people. Ever the compassionate conservative, President Bush has decided to break his word to charitable groups like Catholic Relief Services and Save the Children, welshing on at least $100 million of food aid to help feed the world's most impoverished people.
NY Times
U.S. Cutting Food Aid That Is Aimed at Self-Sufficiency
Mona Charen: The Times does not tell readers that the United States is the world's largest food aid donor by far. In 2004, the United States provided $826,469,172 -- almost a billion dollars -- to the United Nations World Food Program.
The next largest donor, the European Union, contributed $187,102,068. This, despite the fact that the European Union has a total population of 453 million, compared with the USA's 281 million, and a gross domestic product that is larger than that of the United States.
Japan was third on the list, giving $126,906,097, and the United Kingdom was fourth, with donations totaling $109,247,050. Iran gave $40,000. The Saudi Kingdom gave $3,345,325 -- about the cost of one trip to Paris for the Crown Prince. And Kuwait, the OPEC fund and the Russian Federation gave nothing.
Those huge sacks of American wheat, corn, soybeans and legumes have been traversing the globe for more than 50 years, since Eisenhower signed the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954. Kennedy renamed it Food for Peace, and it has undergone numerous changes since. But the essential generosity of the American people has remained intact.
Whether it is a famine in Ethiopia, a civil war in the Balkans or Somalia, or genocide in Sudan, the United States is always the largest donor of food and other humanitarian relief.
In this season of peace, it is useful to remember that we live in a very generous and humanitarian country -- even if The New York Times does its best to obscure it.
CNN CROSSFIRE - Aired December 23, 2004 - 16:30 ET (See Transcript)
BEGALA: The Bush administration is cutting its contributions to food aid for poor people. Ever the compassionate conservative, President Bush has decided to break his word to charitable groups like Catholic Relief Services and Save the Children, welshing on at least $100 million of food aid to help feed the world's most impoverished people.
NY Times
U.S. Cutting Food Aid That Is Aimed at Self-Sufficiency
Mona Charen: The Times does not tell readers that the United States is the world's largest food aid donor by far. In 2004, the United States provided $826,469,172 -- almost a billion dollars -- to the United Nations World Food Program.
The next largest donor, the European Union, contributed $187,102,068. This, despite the fact that the European Union has a total population of 453 million, compared with the USA's 281 million, and a gross domestic product that is larger than that of the United States.
Japan was third on the list, giving $126,906,097, and the United Kingdom was fourth, with donations totaling $109,247,050. Iran gave $40,000. The Saudi Kingdom gave $3,345,325 -- about the cost of one trip to Paris for the Crown Prince. And Kuwait, the OPEC fund and the Russian Federation gave nothing.
Those huge sacks of American wheat, corn, soybeans and legumes have been traversing the globe for more than 50 years, since Eisenhower signed the Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act of 1954. Kennedy renamed it Food for Peace, and it has undergone numerous changes since. But the essential generosity of the American people has remained intact.
Whether it is a famine in Ethiopia, a civil war in the Balkans or Somalia, or genocide in Sudan, the United States is always the largest donor of food and other humanitarian relief.
In this season of peace, it is useful to remember that we live in a very generous and humanitarian country -- even if The New York Times does its best to obscure it.
