Posted on 12/29/2004 10:01:47 AM PST by RockinRight
However, if it were me, I'd say "OK, you're right. As of now, ALL foreign aid is cut off, you a--holes."
I don't remember who, but someone posted on here yesterday that The U.S. should announce that our contribution will match the contribution of muslim countries, dollar for dollar.
Sounds fair to me.
(Now watch the Saudis donate more)
I personally would have much preferred our President tell the world with the same (and his, as usual) amount of class and dignity, that this humperdink punk's comment was not worthy of a response.
Just the kind of crap reporting we've come to expect from the Associated Press.
Call me stingy, but I thought sending $15 million of OUR TAX DOLLARS for this relief effort was too much. In fact, I think sending any foreign aid, in the form of tax dollars, for natural disaster recovery efforts is debatable, at best.
ping
Andrew Natsios is an impressive and very pro-American person who I've seen give press briefings over the last two days (good thing I surf around as Fox didn't see fit to carry his informative appearances).
Unlike the initial comments the AP reports here, they later get to his real message: The US is the leader in providing aid and we'll come through again like we always do.
He was on Fox today speaking with Chris Wallace (even though they didn't carry the briefings I was pleased to see this) and I do believe he impressed Wallace, too. He flat out said that President Bush is a very kind and generous person--not just with tax money which he realizes comes from the people--but with providing real aid and not just throwing money at it in meaningless amounts without drawing up a plan of action.
I like Natsios very much.
"Had it been me, I would have announced the redirecting of U.N. funding fromt he U.S. to aid relief."
I'll vote for that.
Part of the problem here also, is that money donated by USA citizens to charity organizations is lumped together with worldwide donations and not seperated to show how much was given by American citizens. I think in the future when I give I will demand that it be counted as a donation from USA.
I would've said;"Maybe Sadaam's moneymen at the UN who profited from the Humanitarian aid the US gave them.... to the tune of BILLIONS OF DOLLARS....could free up some of their ill-gotten gains to help out.....how 'bout it jacques....kofi?"
Does anybody know how much the UN is giving? Are they giving any money? Or are they just sending people to give advise (we know what that is worth).
"Every dollar and every life we spend fighting terrorists should be counted, if people must keep count. They end up being another kind of natural disaster."
Another way we could look at this is how much do we spend on disaster relief altogether. I mean, let us add together the money that has been spent from the 9/11/01 disaster, the electrical outage in NYC and elsewhere, the hurricanes in the South, all of the floods, tornadoes, earthquakes etc that happen right here in our country together, I wonder how much that all adds up to and what percent of GDP that comes to. These other events are taken care of almost exclusively by USA with zero help from any other country. Why do our needs not count? Afterall, if other countries helped us more, we would have more available to assist other nations with than what we do now.
Here's the yardstick the way I see it....The U.S. gives more money in gov't and private funds to aid the rest of the world, hands down. Message to the rest of the world(and Hollyweird):
"Put your money where your mouth is."
What great posts! You're a FreeRepublic treasure.
Wouldn't it be grand if he signed it the day the UN made Bill Clinton Secretary General. :-)
The reason the US government gives a smaller percentage of GNP than other countries is very simple.
In the US the GNP is generated and owned mostly by the people, while in the semi-socialist European countries, the governments own a big percentage of the GNP.
This is also why our smaller percentage is a bigger number, and vice-versa.
Thank you!
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