Am I my brother’s keeper?
The price of austerity
I woke up Sunday morning and was perusing the internet with my coffee, as I am wont to do on days when I don’t have to wake up and hit the ground running. One of the first articles I saw was a New Yorker story about how the dissolution of US AID had impacted the world.
The money quote from the story was, “As of November 5th, it [is] estimated that US AID’s dismantling has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people, two-thirds of them children.”
I knew that the sudden termination of foreign aid to people that are already on the brink of starvation would be catastrophic, but seeing it in black and white was jarring. As I’ve noted in previous articles, can we really consider ourselves pro-life if we stand idly by and allow such widespread preventable and needless deaths?
Policy differences are one thing, but a policy that results in 600,000 needless deaths in 10 months is about as destructive as dropping a nuclear weapon. To those who are starving or dying of disease while food and medicine sit and rot in government warehouses, it doesn’t matter whether the famine is an unintended result of bad policy or an intentional genocide like the Stalin-induced Holodomor in 1930s Ukraine. You’re just as dead either way.
MAGA would argue America First! and that we can’t afford to send money to other countries, but US AID was a bargain on multiple levels. America got a propaganda and soft power victory that distinguished us from countries like China and Russia on a humanitarian level, and poor countries around the world got a way to help feed and care for their people. US AID provided assistance to 130 countries for about what the Trump Administration is now spending on ICE. American farmers and companies got buyers for their products, which made up the aid.
In terms of cost, taxpayers got a lot of bang for their buck. US AID operated on a budget of about $24 per taxpayer out of a total of $15,000 in tax revenues per capita. For that money, the medical journal, The Lancet, estimated that agency had saved about 92 million lives over two decades. That is a powerful impact.
When I read this and pondered MAGA’s America-first objection, I thought, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
For those who may not know or remember, Genesis 4 tells the story of Cain and Abel, two sons of Adam and Eve. In history’s first act of criminal violence, Cain murdered Abel in a fit of jealousy. When God asked Cain where his brother was, Cain asked the rhetorical question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
The answer is that, at least to some extent, we are our brothers’ keepers. In the New Testament, Jesus also unequivocally told his followers to help the poor.
Growing up as a conservative Christian Republican, there were caveats. There was concern about enabling people to cheat the system and the negative effects of entitlements on both the work ethic and the economy. I think those are legitimate concerns.
When I drive the same route in a city for a while, I see the same people on the same corners day after day. Government programs are too often structured so that they trap people in poverty because boosting their income can be a net negative when losing benefits are considered.
But still, Jesus told us to give. The biblical command to help the poor was to individuals, not governments, but I don’t think that lets us off the hook for either US AID or programs such as SNAP. The harsh truth is that only the government has the necessary resources to fund and administer such programs, even though the cost is minuscule in terms of the federal budget. And as I alluded earlier, funding charity is also in the national interest.
That does not leave the individual off the hook either. There are a great many worthwhile programs and charities that aren’t funded (either fully or partially) by the government. Giving of your money as well as time and effort helps both the recipients of the charity as well as ourselves.
And right now, there are a lot of people in need, both in America and abroad. The government shutdown has not only interrupted SNAP benefits but left thousands of federal workers without paychecks. Many government employees who aren’t highly paid to begin with, and that includes military personnel, are being forced to rely on food banks and charity. Both private and government employees are being laid off in the highest numbers in two decades as a result of a combination of the shutdown, the AI tech boom, and the slowing economy.
I have been gratified to see Americans stepping up to help where government is failing. People around the world donated almost $200,000 to a Portland coffee shop that gave free breakfast to SNAP recipients. Others have donated to food banks that help their neighbors.
In all this, I was reminded of a friend and former coworker who was a professed atheist but one of the most generous people I have ever known. I remember walking with him in Texas when we saw a vagrant sleeping on the street. My friend reached down and left a few dollars in the man’s sleeping bag.
They’ll probably just use the money for drugs, you might argue. They’re probably just scammers. I’ve said and thought the same thing myself. I still do.
If they do, that’s on them, but as an alternative to giving cash, you can give food. I had another friend who used to take leftover food from restaurant meals and give it to street people. Keep some snacks in the car to give to people on street corners. Instead of giving cash to the person who claims to need gas, pay at the pump to put a few gallons in their car. If you get cheated, you may need to fall back on the instruction to turn the other cheek.
On a personal note, I have been the beneficiary of government charity. When I was starting out as a regional airline pilot, the probationary pay was so low that we qualified for WIC with our new baby. My first layoff came a few months later with a 10-month-old to provide for. I’ve seen the other side of the coin.
Ultimately, if someone is preying on charitable people, that’s between them and God. If we look for excuses not to help the needy, that’s between us and God.
The Bible does teach us to be good stewards of our resources, however. Giving to organizations that have the experience and know-how to vet their recipients and that operate efficiently is a good strategy, although that doesn’t help the person asking you for food or money on the street. Organizations like Charity Navigator, Charity Watch, and the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability can help to screen out charity scams and groups that skim too much donor money for overhead.
I need to do better at giving. My plan this week is to buy a load of groceries and then go volunteer at our local food bank. I also want to pick a good international charity and start making donations to help offset the shortfall in federal foreign aid. I challenge you to do the same, if you are able.
There is no way that we, as individuals, can replace even the small part of the federal budget that funded US AID. We can’t save everyone, but we can save someone. We are our brothers’ keeper if we are able to help.
SHUTDOWN DEAL On Sunday night, the Senate reached a deal to end the shutdown. If passed, the deal would fund some parts of the government for the fiscal year and other agencies through January 30.
294 DAYS of the second Trump Administration have passed without a release of the Epstein files.
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20 BILLION to make Argentina great again. 🤣 ‘nuff said.
"...600,000 needless deaths in 10 months..." Well, double that and we have about as many "needless deaths" as we have in our own country through murdering babies. But, you're right, we can't say we are pro-life in either case, can we? The Bible tells us that "we will always have the poor with us." And yes, we are supposed to do what we can for them, but i just wonder if maybe those 70 million babies that have been destroyed since 1973 in America have exacerbated the problems we have in the world today vis-a-vis poverty, war, disease, etc..