Take Action: Save the Budget!
March 10th, 2008 at 12:15 pm | posted by Virginia SimmonsOn Friday, we sent around a petition to the Senate asking them not to slash 4 billion dollars from the international affairs budget. Over the weekend we managed to gather over 54,000 signatures, but if we hope to convince our senators that we can’t roll back the amount we give to the fight against poverty, we’re going to need many more senators to sign on.
If you, or someone you know, hasn’t signed the petition calling on the Senate to restore this vital funding, please sign now and send it to your friends as well.
-Weldon Kennedy
March 10th, 2008 at 2:18 pm
I find it unbelievable that we spend over 1/3 of our GDP on making war, yet spend LESS than 0.19% on foreign development assistance. Where has our country come to that we spend more on taking lives than we do on saving them?
Yes, the nation is in debt. But yes, there are a million and one things we could change to get out of debt, and the overall cost of investing in ending poverty will benefit us, and save us even greater financial risks, for years to come.
The US ranks last among the world’s 20 or so wealthiest nations in terms of how much we give to foreign aid compared to our wealth. And how was the wealth of the United States earned? Let’s not forget about slavery, colonialism, war, and huge debts to corrupt dictators with sky-high interest rates! America built its wealth largely on the backs of these countries and poor immigrants from these countries… and now we are going to cut them off.
In September I saw Noerine Kaleeba and Lydia Mungherera from TASO speak at Harvard on
children and HIV … what a pity that they may be losing their funding from the US. As if the United States hasn’t harmed that country enough- the recent reinstatement of abstinence-only-until-marriage HIV “prevention” has resulted in an increase of HIV infections, especially among young women.
How could we have the nerve to pull such a huge amount of foreign aid right after Bush made such a big showing of his tour of Africa, smiling smugly as he and his family received accolades for all of his ‘brilliant efforts’ at saving the poor Africans??? Preposterous.
Joya Banerjee
Global Youth Coalition on HIV/AIDS