If people want to open their pocketbooks or write a check, that is what they should do. But our government should NOT commit massive amounts of taxpayer dollars to help. We have already run up a debt of astronomic proportions, the result of which has been unemployment, homelessness and a whole host of other economic and social problems. Our taxpayer dollars should be committed to our causes only; we should not be carrying the rest of the world.
Haiti was and will remain a black hole. We have poured large sums of money into this country; yet, it gets worse and worse there. The problems with Haiti started a long time ago and they will not be reversed with another infusion of cash from the United States. Haiti could do a booming tourism business, relieving the economic plight of its citizens, but it does not. Like many countries, Haiti continues to look for a bailout, particularly from the US. The citizens have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. They have to demand and install a better government than what they have now. In other words, they have to help themselves, not look to the US and the rest of the world.
If the United Nations wants to send relief, that’s fine. They don’t appreciate the United States anyway...unless they have their hands out for something. Even then, the US is criticized for not doing enough. Fine. If the UN thinks it can do a better job with relief (which it can’t as we know from past disasters), good — let them do it.
It’s a hard and perhaps cruel position to take, but the US has to stop being the caretaker of the world. Only then can we force countries to stand up for themselves and compel other cheap, lazy countries to put forth some of their money if that’s what they want to do.