The tsunamis that slammed Indonesia last month saw over 120 thousand dead (with figures expected to exceed 150 thousand) and over 5 million homeless. In the wake of this disaster, the USA is branded “stingy” by the UN and although this comment was seemingly taken out of context, President Bush went on the defensive justifying America’s generosity…and even upping the ante. But should we?
I don’t think the United States government should give anything. Yep, zip, nada, nothing, a big fat goose-egg in monetary aid. The money our government is pledging is ours–yours and mine. Its our tax dollars. The money we provide our elected officials to govern our nation. To provide for our common defense, etc. Our government should have no more money in reserve than it requires to carry out the functions of government. Our government doesn’t have the right, nor the authority granted by the Constitution to provide this charity.
During a congressional session, a young member of the House of Representatives named Davy Crockett espoused the same sentiment. His speech (as published in The Life of Colonel David Crockett, by Edward Sylvester Ellis, 1884) was to cite opposition to a bill that would have apportioned money for the benefit of the widow of a distinguished naval officer. During this short speech, Congressman Crockett stated,
“…we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity.”
“Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.”
Crockett went on to remind everyone that,
“…we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and, if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.”
Not one of the assembled mass responded to his offer!
Davy Crockett’s words ring true today! As I said, it isn’t the responsibility of the United States government to provide monetary aid–this charity–to the tsunami victims, it’s the responsibility of the citizens of the United States! My wife and I have offered a personal donation for the tsunami victims’ relief and we challenge you too give as well! The amount isn’t important…imagine if everyone in the United States donated just five percent of one week’s wages! It would far exceed the 350 million dollars our government has pledged!
I’d be interested to know if the folks who criticized the United States–including its own citizens–made a pledge of their own. I would venture to say, most didn’t. So ask yourself, “Is the American government stingy, or is it the American people?”
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