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It's a myth that U.S. citizens oppose foreign aid
Sunday, February 11, 2001
Contrary to conventional wisdom, Americans strongly support foreign aid and are willing to spend more to relieve poverty and reduce hunger and disease, even if such spending requires a tax increase.
But the appalling reality is that the United States is the stingiest of 22 donor nations when development aid is measured as a percentage of gross domestic product.
The United Nations has established a goal for aid donations from industrialized nations of 0.7 percent of gross domestic product. Only four countries - Denmark, Norway, Netherlands and Sweden - reached that target in 1999. The United States was at the bottom of the list with aid totaling just 0.1 percent of its gross national product.
Because of its wealth, that paltry spending still puts the United States second behind Japan in absolute dollars appropriated for foreign development aid. But the contribution relative to national wealth is far less significant, especially in light of disparities between rich and poor nations.
Over the last 20 years, the 800 million people in the richest countries have seen per capita incomes increase by nearly $10,000, while the per capita incomes for the 1.3 billion people in the poorest countries (excluding China and India) have declined by $4. That means that in 1980, the per capita income in the wealthiest nations was 22 times what it was in the poorest nations, but by 1998, it was 60 times greater.
More generous foreign aid is not the only answer to the gap between rich and poor nations. For example, debt forgiveness for developing nations also would have a major impact, as would economic reforms in many of those countries. Still, the United States should be more generous - a proposition that many American taxpayers seem to understand.
In a poll conducted by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, three-quarters of the respondents said they were willing to pay higher taxes to attack the problem of world hunger.
While there is some hostility to aid that is given to promote strategic interests - such as the perennially large packages for Israel and Egypt - in general the American people seem to be out front on this issue. It's time elected leaders caught up.