I Told You So

Am I good, or what? This morning’s edition of the Washington Times has an article entitled “UN Official Slams US As ‘Stingy’ Over Aid.” Read the entire article for yourself.

The US government is giving $15 million.

“But U.N. Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Jan Egeland suggested that the United States and other Western nations were being "stingy" with relief funds, saying there would be more available if taxes were raised.”

So Norwegian Jan Egeland thinks that we should raise our already high taxes and give more money to the UN. I would like to remind Comrade Egeland that the US taxpayers already provide over 24% of the funding for the UN’s 190 other do-gooder nations to spend outside our borders. We also donate most of the cost of the expensive waterfront property their headquarters building sits on in New York City.

And then of course there is all of the private giving by US citizens to charitable organizations like the Red Cross and the tens of thousands of hours our Doctors and Engineers and other experts will donate in time and services both here in the US and in the affected region.

It is so boring for the UN to be so predictable. I wish they could come up with something more original—like actually establishing an international system in these developing countries to warn of earthquake generated waves and of just plain old typhoons so thousands don’t die in Bangladesh the next time the wind blows over 74 MPH.

Would that be too much to ask???

UPDATE 12/28/04 PM

I made an error, working from memory, on the amount of funding that the US provides to the UN...its 24.48%, not 40%. So I'm not perfect...I corrected the text while working on a new rant.