The "stinginess" bandwagon...a dangerous ride

It's incredible that people have the gall to call the U.S. initial contribution of $35 million as being "stingy" or not enough to help with the tsunami victims of Asia. First it was $15 million, beating out all other countries for their initial contributions and then later the amount went to $35 million as more information came in noting the gravity of the situation where over 100,000 were killed and millions displaced over 11 different countries. That alone is a logistical nightmare rather than one just one country affected by a disaster.

And since the disaster struck four days ago the initial $35 million will undoubtedly go into the billions of dollars from the U.S. Government support and help. Not only cash, but expertise and equipments such as C-130 cargo planes and Navy carriers.

"Moving a carrier strike force and a Marine expeditionary unit within 72 hours should not be considered dillydallying," State Department spokesman J. Adam Ereli said. "The planes are on the ground in Indonesia tonight." Rice and water-purification equipment have been unloaded in some stricken areas for distribution, U.S. officials noted.

Name a country who is sending out a Naval carrier, cargo planes, boats filled with supplies, food, medicine, tents, equipments and armed personnel to help with the disaster? Moving a Naval carrier is not cheap and would easily surpass Spain's contribution of $60 million dollars.

The United States is also assisting in ways not covered by the $35 million, including sending Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials to the region to help protect residents from diseases that some experts worry could double the number of victims.

The administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Andrew Natsios. Ambassador Natsios responded about Jan Egeland's "stingy" comment:

ANDREW NATSIOS: I have written books on this. I've been doing this work for 15 years. Jan Egeland is a friend of mine; we're the biggest donor to fund his office and his staff.

I called him and said, Jan, what are you talking about? He's talking about development assistance, not disaster relief. For disaster relief, it's simply nonsense. He doesn't know what the data shows.

If he did, he wouldn't have made that comment. He told me he was misquoted and he was speaking about development assistance.

What he did not know is that President Bush has arranged the largest increase in development assistance since Harry Truman.

The budget when Bill Clinton entered office for ODA, Official Development Assistance, which is an international formula used by 27 countries that are donor governments, was 10.6 billion dollars. In 2003, it was $24 billion.

You've had a 140 percent increase. We're well beyond what the president committed at Monterey and at Johannesburg. There is a huge effort to combat HIV/AIDS, the millennium challenge account. My food aid budget has been increased hugely.

GWEN IFILL: So you're saying even when talking about development assistance, that those numbers don't add up?

ANDREW NATSIOS: Those numbers don't add up. What they do is they use a European formula, which we've never used in the United States in 55 years, which is to use a percentage of our Gross National Product.

The reason that people quote that is because in Europe it's been used as a standard, but our economy grows so much faster than the Japanese or the European economy that we would never catch up.

No matter how much we do, we could never be... if we did, we would dominate the entire world and overwhelm everybody with the amount of money but a 140 percent increase in three years is a massive increase in development
assistance.

And in clarification of what Jan Egeland's "stingy" comment:

"I never said anybody had been stingy over the tsunami,'' Egeland said. "I understand very much the president's answer" because the United States is the biggest donor to humanitarian and disaster relief.

Egeland, who was a journalist for 10 years, said he realized "10 seconds'' after making the "stingy'' comment on Monday that it wasn't clear and was open to misinterpretation. "And I immediately then started to correct it ... I was not pressured by anybody. I took the initiative myself,'' he said.

How true. The United State spent $2.4 billion on disaster relief aid so far in 2004, far, far more than any other nation. U.S officials predicted the biggest-ever U.S. response to a natural disaster will be in the weeks ahead where the resulting cost that may last several months (and years in certain areas) to go over easily into the billions. Your tax dollars at work for DISASTER RELIEF. Don't bite the hands that feed you.