The Last Thing Haiti Needs is Money
Barack Obama has pledged to send $100 million American tax dollars to Haiti for earthquake aid. That $100 million is in addition to the $800 million we sent to Haiti between 2004 and 2008, and it doesn’t count against the $282 million the U.S. Senate proposed for them in the next annual foreign assistance budget, nor will it be a part of the $165 million proposed by the U.S. House of Representatives. Obviously, the people in Haiti need help desperately. The country has been devastated by the recent earthquake, thousands of people are dead and many of the structures have collapsed. The people need help but sending money to a historically corrupt government that has already stolen everything that we have sent them in the last five or six years doesn’t seem like a bright thing to be doing. They need rescue workers to help dig out the trapped and dead, they need demolition crews to clear the rubble of the nation’s collapsed buildings, they need construction crews to start building new shelters for the displaced people, new schools for the children and hospitals for the sick and injured. They need road crews to go in and rebuild their demolished streets and highways. They need portable shelters until house can be build and throughout the entire process they need food, water, clothing and medical care. Sending them $100 million dollars is not the way to ensure that the people of Haiti get these things they need. The $800 million we have already sent to Haiti plus the $7 million that was sent to them by other nations and charities has not been used to build roads, schools or hospitals. It was not used to provide the people with food, medical assistance or to improve their education. Nobody really knows where that money went or what it was spent on but the people of Haiti know that none of came their way. Most of the homes in Haiti, before the earthquake, were without safe drinking water, sewage or electricity. Nearly 50% of the population is illiterate and the majority of the population lives on less than $2 dollars a day. One out of every eight children dies before their fifth birthday because of the squalid living conditions in a country where people still die from diseases like malaria, typhoid and dengue fever and other diseases that most of the civilized world long ago ceased to be concerned about. Sending money to the Haitian government is not going to help the people of Haiti. It is like throwing a drowning man an anchor.
The United States of American has unemployed engineers, light and heavy construction workers, electricians, plumbers, heavy equipment operators, welders, carpenters, laborers and countless other occupations and craftsmen all sitting around with nothing to do except watch the illegal aliens work at the jobs we used to have. Instead of sending money to the Haitian government, send shiploads of knowledgeable workers, supplies, building materials, food and medicine and use all of the money to fund the relief effort. The $15 million that the government of Haiti received from the U.S. taxpayers and from other countries in the last five years has not been used to help the people and there is no reason to believe that another $100 million will go to help the people of Haiti either. They need help, not money. Other than a cigarette factory, a bunch of Barbancourt rum distilleries and a couple of textile factories that assemble the pre-cut parts to clothing items that first have to imported, there is nothing in Haiti. They’ve got tons of mangrove trees but no lumber mills capable of producing the quantities of lumber needed to replace all of destroyed buildings. There is no cement plant, no steel mill nor any reliable power generation in the entire country. What good is a $100 million dollars going to do them? They can’t eat it, they can’t build a house out of it, and there certainly isn’t anywhere in the country to buy what they need so what’s the point? The answer to that should be pretty obvious. Even though our government officials know very well that the money will be siphoned off and spirited into secret bank accounts in Sweden or somewhere else they will send it because the American people don’t know any better and think that it is the right thing to do. Obama can pat himself on the back. He can use the opportunity to boost his dwindling popularity ratings among black Americans, and slam George Bush, and the entire Republican Party, in the head for the federal government’s response to Katrina. It is not an indication of any large degree of compassion for Obama; it is merely a politically savvy thing for a typically sociopathic politician to do. Its Obama way of saying to the American people, “See, unlike my predecessor who didn’t care about anybody, I care about everyone, I sent them money, your money. Sure, we are broke and can’t afford to do it, but what the hell, its only money and we can print more while you, and the next ten generations, work your asses off to pay the bill.” According to www.usdebtclock.org, which I checked at 3:30 pm Pacific Stand Time today, the US National Debt was at $12.3 trillion dollars (it was at $5.7 trillion when Bush took office and $7.8 trillion when he left office 8 years later). For the mathematically challenged that works out to about $113,000 for each U.S. Taxpayer. Can we really afford to give away money we don’t have?
Technorati Tags
Barack Obama
Haiti