AMERICANS STILL GENEROUS; AMERICA INCREASINGLY LESS SO
By Georgie Anne Geyer
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2205&ncid=2215&e=1&u=/ucgg/20041231/cm_ucgg/americansstillgenerousamericaincreasinglylesssoWASHINGTON, D.C. -- It was a little like asking the man you love whether he loves you, and finally he says he does -- only 72 hours after the question is raised! That, at least, is how President Bush (news - web sites)'s -- and thus in the eyes of the world, America's -- response to the devastating tsunami losses in Southeast Asia struck me. While tens of thousands of innocent human beings were perishing in preternaturally boiling seas, the president was busy sawing logs and cutting brush on vacation in Crawford, Texas. Only three days after the onslaught, now dressed in a formal suit, did he give a press conference regretting the tragedy.
First of all, it is true, as the president said, that the United States, including individuals and organizations, has for many years been the major donor to humanitarian disasters in the world; in fact, its donations were, last year, an impressive 40 percent of the world's, or some $2.4 billion in food, cash and humanitarian relief. But it is also true that the initial American offering this week of $15 million for tsunami victims, not incidentally most of them Muslim, was rightly considered ludicrous by a world critical of humongous American investments in Iraq (news - web sites).
Just before Christmas, for instance, the Bush administration reduced its contributions to global food aid programs aimed at helping millions of people climb out of poverty. Charities such as Save the Children and Catholic Relief Services have had to eliminate self-help programs where U.S. government funds were promised. At the same time, our scientific research monies are down, foreign students are going elsewhere, and American embassies have become isolated and uncommunicating fortresses across the world.
Americans are tremendously generous people, as we saw when, immediately after the tsunami and not days later, millions of private dollars flowed to private humanitarian groups. This spirit, thank God, still thrives. But the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, who spoke of laying the basis for the "thousandth and thousandth generation" of Americans -- and others -- barely exists in our government today. That can and must be changed.