Your Sept. 26 editorial on foreign aid funding should be required reading for many Americans who perceive foreign aid as dispensable. At 1 percent of the federal budget, this smallest of the 13 budget items is essential for looking after the worldwide interests attendant with America’s status as a world power.
Foreign aid, properly spent, can bolster efforts throughout the developing world to fight diseases such as tuberculosis, which kills more than 2 million people each year and is threatening to develop drug-resistant strains throughout much of the world.
Timely investment is needed in programs that effectively treat and control this and other diseases.
Equally important is that portion of foreign assistance that goes toward basic education and toward programs for the poorest people.
These will ultimately be essential to eliminate the burden that poverty imposes on both the people of the developing world and the growth of the global economy in which this country is heavily involved.
“Foreign” in “foreign aid” is deceptive. It goes to different countries but the same world.
