Day By Day© by Chris Muir.

Friday, December 31, 2004

America the Generous

A nice refutation from Jack Kelly to the U.N. charge (now taken up by the NY Times) that the US is stingy in the face of disaster:

The basis for it [the charge of US stinginess] is that the U.S. devotes only 0.14 percent of gross domestic product to foreign aid, according to figures compiled by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The Paris-based organization's figures do not include humanitarian assistance provided by the U.S. military, or U.S. food aid. But the OECD's big omission is private charity. As of Wednesday night, The American Red Cross had received $18 million in donations; Doctors without Borders, $4 million; CARE USA $3.5 million; Save the Children, $3 million; AmericaCares, $2 million; Oxfam America, $1.6 million, and Catholic Charities, $1.13 million. Private donations from Americans so far exceed contributions from any governments save our own, and dwarf private contributions from the rest of the world. Yet overpaid international bureaucrats like Egelund pay them no heed.
I haven't seen any figures on private donations from other nations (as opposed to government handouts). Any information on this?