The US is stingy? WTF???

The BBQ Pit
1

The UN official is calling the US contribution of $15 million to relief efforts for the tsunami stingy, and suggest taxes to raised, since US citizens “want to give more.”

No shit, Sherlock. That’s why phones are ringing off the hook at the Red Cross and Salvation Army and Americares. Hell, on post 77 of this thread, Bosda has just given $200.

Relief money doesn’t have to come from taxes. It can come from the generosity of the US citizens, which it is doing. How dare you say that taxes should be increased to pay for relief efforts! How dare you spit on the $15 million contribution! How much have you given out of your own pocket? Or do you believe people are only generous in times of need when the money is forcibly removed from their pockets? Could the US gov’t contribution be more? Probably. And it will most likely be more as time goes by.

In times of disaster, the US has shown quite nicely that it can come together and help out. During the Oklahoma City bombing, so many doctors volunteered there were four physicians for each victim. Need I remind you the Red Cross had to tell people to stop donating blood after Sept 11, since they had more than enough for their need? Less than four days after the attacks, Hollywood put on a multiple network music telethon, amazingly without government help, that raised millions. Even in my own state during the hurricanes, crews came from out of state to help get the power back on.

Ungrateful jackass. The US didn’t have to give anything, you know. We could have just relied on the Red Cross, et al to take care of it. The government is not the solution for everything.

2

Don’t get crazy Ivlass. I don’t know your overall political leanings but comments like these will get you rounded up by the “teeming millions” AKA brother red, any inference that individuals may be able to spend money just as well (or criminally) better than government is a violation of this forum subculture’s primary belief system.

3

Maybe the U.N. should coordinate the relief operations. I’m sure everybody will get their medicine, food and clothing then.

:frowning:

4

I don’t want to do laundry again, so perhaps I shouldn’t step into this conservative wankfest in the making. :wink: But…

We need to come up with a name for this BRILLIANT strategy of pissing off people who want to agree with you by insulting them. Needs some sort of catchy title with Principle or Paradox the end.

Moving along: ivy has a point, but further reading makes it clear this official is not criticizing the US specifically, but the West in general.

Much less offensive, and self-inclusive. $15 million is a lot of money, but it’s a budgetary trifle over here. If there’s more coming, great. And foreign aid IS paid with taxes.

5

In the bipartisan spirit suggested by Marley23, I’ll add that this is just one guy. One frustrated, overworked guy who may be having a bad moment. I know if you catch me on the worst day of my professional life you’re likely to hear a thing or two that I’ll end up apologizing for later. I can only imagine it would be worse if my professional life was trying to provide humanitarian relief after the worst natural disaster in human history over an area of thousands and thousands of miles. I’m gonna suggest cutting him some slack for a bit. If he keeps repeating it then maybe a Pitting is appropriate. Today, let the guy vent at the target of his choice.

6

I gotta admit that when I first heard the 15 million number I thought “That’s it? 15 Million?”. Of course it was 15 Million *to start * with and more, probably much more, would come later. It’s like as soon as they heard about the disaster they looked in the couch cushions of the oval office and found 15 million and sent that right away.

7

Not to mention the doctors and other medical personnel, search and rescue teams, military support, medicines, supplies, etc etc that will ultimately end up over there. I’d WAG that folks in these fields are already on the way, if not already there.

When all is said and done, there will be much more western aid than these initial dollar figures. Some problems aren’t solved by simply throwing tons of money at it. This particular problem will take years to deal with.

8

$15 million sounds like a lot until you compare it with the reported $40-50 million that will be spent on the inauguration. The theme of this bash is A Vision of America . So what is this vision? It is said that one’s values are best displayed by where one spends his money. It appears that throwing a fairly wasteful ball of pomp and circumstance rates quite a bit higher in our national values than aiding a people so devastated by this tsunami.

I truly hope the $15 million is just a start and that much more aid will be forthcoming. If we are to convince the world we are a compassionate nation, we need to act the part. Think of how compassionate GW Bush would be to scale down the inauguration to a simple ceremony and give the money to aid these victims instead. Now THAT would indeed be a Vision of America to be proud of.

9

What an opportunity. I suspect it will be squandered, of course, because that’s been our wont of late. But, God damn! what a chance to rehabilitate ourselves in the eyes of the world!

The Falwells, the Buchanans, the Bauer, the whole Christian Right front should be on this like a starving dog on a pork chop! Raise tons of money, dump in right into the hands of the Red Crescent and the Red Cross, but lots of emphasis on how much goes to the Muslim-oriented Red Crescent. (Quite a lot of those people are Muslim, you know.)

Cancel the Inaugaral Celebrations, forward the checks to the above. Swear in GeeDubya in a small, tasteful Rose Garden ceremony. Ask the corporate contributors to forward their checks likewise.

Don’t like the UN? Then let’s show 'em how its done! How robust, vigorous, no-nonsense conservative compassion can leap into action, how much more readily we can mobilize to save lives, how much smarter and better we are!

Ask the corporations that sponsor the Super Bowl to donate an amount equal to the cost of the ads, put a little blurb at the end of each ad to show off the humanistic pride of our corporate culture (pssssst! guys! A child that dies of diptheria or cholera is a future customer lost!..) Ask the players to donate their bonuses, have a public display, a Roster of Jesus’ Team, to honor those who comply!

We’re the strongest, richest, smartest country ever, and we can save at least a million lives, and stun the world! (Some of them are bound to be Unborn Children…)

If we don’t jump right on this, it won’t be because we’re stingy. It will be because we’re stupid.

10

I agree with both Manhattan and the OP; cut the guy some slack, but at the same time, this isnt the first time that only govt contributions are looked at by organizations/individuals when calculating aid levels.

Combine both govt contributions ~and~ the contributions of individuals within a nation to arrive at a number. Then make judgements as to what nations are more or less stingy. Govt aid is best in the form of transport/air/sea resources than it is in amounts; let individuals contribute what they see fit, let the govt provide the logistics and resources to distribute/transport that which was paid for by the individual contributions.

11

Jesus, Manny, you turning into Mother Teresa or something? :wink:

Perhaps the Red Cross has us a little too well trained to roll up a sleeve when there is a disaster but as I recall the reason there was more than enough blood was because of the very low number of injured survivors. I don’t recall them asking us to stop sending money, just blood and blankets. I’m not about to suggest the gummint do this, especially while in the company of the people in this thread :wink: , but the giving by Americans could be better coordinated. Congressman Gopher’s experience and talents seem to be wasted doing a morning show in DC. Maybe he could head it up.

12

That’s good - Australia offered $10million plus aircraft and supplies and personnel and I thought we were being cheap but now …

13

Im sorry, could you explain the connection between whether we are a compassionate nation or not and how much our govt contributes?

If we, as individuals, contribute a higher percentage of our incomes to orgs like the Red Cross/Crecent etc than other individuals in other nations, then we are a compassionate nation whether our govt contributes $10 or $10 billion.

14

Who cares who gives what? As long as they get enough to help everyone, what difference does it make that country A gave X but Country B only gave Y. If X+Y=Z (Z being more than enough) who cares what the individual contributions are?

15

I am all for the US providing aid to the region in a sensible manner, which means not one damned penny should be filtered through the UN. Last thing I want is US money going to support Tamil Tigers or some crazy shit, and given the UN’s record with relief aid, why trust them?

Not to mention, having a UN official on record as saying that we could raise our taxes to give more? That’s going to have traction down the road.

16

I could be wrong, but I thought the RNC (or the DNC, as the case may be) paid for the inauguration ceremony, not the gov’t. Am I mistaken?

17

Well firstly we should mention that the United States was the single largest donor to this relief fund so far.

Now, we can argue per capita but the fact is the United States is an individual country and we can’t always afford to do things on the same level as other countries per capita. For example a small European country along the lines of Luxemburg, Switzerland, Liechtenstein et al. would be able to raise much more per capita because there are lots of transnational issues they don’t have to deal with so therefor they have a lot more “disposable” income as a nation.

Also the United Staes has dispatched a 21 member aid team to the region and has sent out planes as well.

18

@Ivylass I sort of thought that as well, but was unsure so said nothing.

I should also mention that in all cases more money doesn’t = better results. After awhile for certain things a premium is put on personnel, equpment, infrastructure, planners et cetera as opposed to money.

Think of it like this, you’re playing Warcraft III, the Orcs are invading. You raise an obscenely huge amount of gold using a cheat code.

You have no buildings with which to produce troops, and your hero is untrained. The money has done nothing to help you win because you don’t have the infrastructure to do what needs to be done now and no amount of gold is going to change that.

19

Once again, idiot conservatives set up a strawman to merrily knock down in order to show their contempt for international organizations. Mr. Egeland did not single out the United States and call it stingy - he grouped it with Australia, Europe, and all those other Western countries.

Second, he did not call the United States people stingy, in fact, he implied they were generous by saying that if the people knew their money was going to relief efforts, they likely wouldn’t mind being taxed. Egeland called the governments stingy with relief money.

20

Can’t handle Civ III, huh? That’s ok, we understand. We sneer, but we understand.