U.S. indifference to poor countries is disgraceful

A few weeks ago, I decided I didn't want to hear Bush, DC '68, and Gore bicker about whether our nation's superfluous wealth should go to the relatively rich, the really rich, or those who just really want to be rich. While the nation tuned into the debate, I slipped out and went to hear Jeffrey Sachs talk about something that had totally slipped my mind amidst the election frenzy—helping the poor.

SARAH ENGLAND/YH

Sachs, director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University, quickly brought his small audience in LC 102 in touch with reality, reminding us that 20 percent of the world's population is malnourished—200 million people. In the last 50 years, almost 400 million people worldwide have died from hunger and poor sanitation—three times the number killed in all wars of the 20th century. The AIDS pandemic has claimed 19 million lives, and today, 34 million people live with HIV, mostly in Africa and Asia. These numbers floored me, but I reassured myself that, as a U.S. citizen, I was helping to solve these problems by paying taxes that went to foreign aid. But I, like the nearly half of U.S. voters who believe either foreign aid or welfare is the biggest item on the federal budget, was completely in the dark. Sachs turned the light on, pausing and placing a great emphasis on his most unsettling point: foreign aid takes up less than one tenth of one percent of our nation's money.

The statistics on the other end of the spectrum only added to my horror and embarrassment. The wealth of our nation has grown astronomically in recent years. We currently possess the largest budget surplus in U.S. history. What are we doing with our newfound wealth? Definitely not sharing it. While the wealthiest fifth of the world consumes 86 percent of all goods and services, the poorest fifth consumes one percent. Sachs stressed that the gap between the rich and the poor today is the largest in the world's history.

Why is no one talking about this, I asked myself. Why haven't I heard the word AIDS in months? Why is our nation only concerned with putting surplus tax money back in our pockets when our neighbors are dying by the millions? In this age of proclaimed global interdependence, do Americans live in a bubble? Sachs called this "the stock market bubble," suggesting that Americans are disillusioned by their prosperity and "in a bit of a euphoric mood." I think it's fair to say that our future leaders are no exception to the national temperment. Gore hails our era as a "time of pride and plenty," while Bush calls it a "truly historic moment." Although I would like to think that this is just election talk—that once in office our next president would take some active steps to help the world's poor—I am skeptical. If the efforts of the Clinton administration are any indication of those of the administration to come, things don't look good for the starving girl in Bangladesh.

Foreign aid declined steadily throughout the Clinton era. At the 1996 World Food Summit, the U.S. shied away from any commitment, announcing that they would "continue to provide high quality aid on a case-by-case basis as appropriate." Interpretation: we are really only concerned with ourselves right now, so we're going to throw away this chance to make a cooperative global effort and keep our own ridiculous wealth instead. Perhaps the saddest fact is that we could keep our ridiculous wealth and solve a huge portion of the world's problems at the same time. According to Sachs, a mere 20 dollars per American could accomplish this feat. Why so little? Thirty thousand, five hundred children die each day from simple diseases such as diarrhea or acute respiratory infections, and over half of these are associated with basic nutritional deficiencies.

With a burgeoning world population that is expected to rise from six billion to 7.6 billion in the next 20 years, I hope we wake up from our dreams of hot dot-com stocks and tax cuts to finance our third car and look reality in the face. Americans cannot dismiss the numbers relating to starvation and disease and agonize over the numbers in their stock portfolios. The starving woman with HIV and four children is no less real than the latest dot-com millionaire. We need to reevaluate how we spend tax dollars. After all, it may be our money, but that makes it our responsibility too.

Colleen Kinder is a sophomore in Morse.

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