Posted on: Friday, December 31, 2004

EDITORIAL
Stingy? Tsunami aid nothing to brag about

No doubt Jan Egeland is wishing he'd said it differently. Referring to initial pledges of relief the day after the horrendous Indian Ocean tsunami, Egeland, the U.N. emergency relief coordinator, said rich countries seemed to have forgotten how fortunate they are.

"It is beyond me why we are so stingy, really," he said.

"The United States is not stingy," said an indignant Colin Powell, and in the next breath he more than doubled his government's first relief pledge, from $15 million to $35 million.

"The person who made that statement was very misguided and ill-informed," President Bush remarked.

Sadly, however, Egeland is right.

The offer should have made Powell, who made it, blush. The U.N. had already assessed the immediate need at $130 million. The ultimate need will be in the billions.

Put another way, as The New York Times points out, $15 million is less than half of what Republicans plan to spend on the Bush inaugural festivities.

Bush and Powell aren't the only ones who think we're not stingy. According to a poll, most Americans believe the United States spends 24 percent of its budget on aid to poor countries. It actually spends well under one-fourth of 1 percent. Its foreign-aid budget as a percentage of gross national product ranks last among the world's wealthiest countries.

Moreover, the United States is still far behind in making good on other pledges, such as the one following the earthquake a year ago in Bam, Iran.

The amount of help needed as the result of the Indian Ocean tsunami is unprecedented. It is to be hoped that the rest of the world, with the United States in the vanguard, will respond with unprecedented generosity.