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NY Times EDITORIAL

Are We Stingy? Yes

Published: December 30, 2004


President Bush finally roused himself yesterday from his vacation in
Crawford, Tex., to telephone his sympathy to the leaders of India, Sri
Lanka, Thailand and Indonesia, and to speak publicly about the
devastation of Sunday's tsunamis in Asia. He also hurried to put as
much distance as possible between himself and America's initial measly
aid offer of $15 million, and he took issue with an earlier statement
by the United Nations' emergency relief coordinator, Jan Egeland, who
had called the overall aid efforts by rich Western nations "stingy."
"The person who made that statement was very misguided and ill
informed," the president said.

We beg to differ. Mr. Egeland was right on target. We hope Secretary of
State Colin Powell was privately embarrassed when, two days into a
catastrophic disaster that hit 12 of the world's poorer countries and
will cost billions of dollars to meliorate, he held a press conference
to say that America, the world's richest nation, would contribute $15
million. That's less than half of what Republicans plan to spend on the
Bush inaugural festivities.

The American aid figure for the current disaster is now $35 million,
and we applaud Mr. Bush's turnaround. But $35 million remains a miserly
drop in the bucket, and is in keeping with the pitiful amount of the
United States budget that we allocate for nonmilitary foreign aid.
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 a quarter of 1 percent.

Bush administration officials help create that perception gap. Fuming
at the charge of stinginess, Mr. Powell pointed to disaster relief and
said the United States "has given more aid in the last four years than
any other nation or combination of nations in the world." But for
development aid, America gave $16.2 billion in 2003; the European Union
gave $37.1 billion. In 2002, those numbers were $13.2 billion for
America, and $29.9 billion for Europe.

Making things worse, we often pledge more money than we actually
deliver. Victims of the earthquake in Bam, Iran, a year ago are still
living in tents because aid, including ours, has not materialized in
the amounts pledged. And back in 2002, Mr. Bush announced his
Millennium Challenge account to give African countries development
assistance of up to $5 billion a year, but the account has yet to
disperse a single dollar.

Mr. Bush said yesterday that the $35 million we've now pledged "is only
the beginning" of the United States' recovery effort. Let's hope that
is true, and that this time, our actions will match our promises.

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