Recently a presidential executive order stopped the funding of our international aid programs for the next 90 days, while yet another child in our world dies every 6 seconds from hunger or preventable diseases.
Our international aid budget is less than 1% of our total federal expenditures, and the humanitarian and medical aid that is offered to poor nations through the USAID (the U.S. Agency for International Development) only amounts to a little over $ 9.8 billion. Now that sounds like a lot of money, but that averages only $28.98 per U.S. citizen in a year. To calculate your individual contribution to these life-saving investments, multiply your federal income tax paid by 24 cents for every $100 of your actual tax bill.
To understand the return on that relatively small investment, in the past 15 years U.S. funding of international aid for medical and humanitarian care is credited with saving the lives of 4,600,000 children and 200,000 women; immunizing over 25 million children (which saves about 3 million lives each year); keeping 20 million souls alive on life-saving antivirals through PEPFAR; providing nutritional support to over 12 million children; and helping to avert 6.8 million deaths from malaria.
The world’s children need our help. Please call the White House (202-869-8931) and Congress (202-224-3121). Tell them either that you care deeply and want them to continue funding these life-saving programs…or that you want your $28.98 back and they should switch off this life-support and let these children die.
William E. Cosgrove, Cottonwood Heights
