Nutritional charity begins at home

May 20, 2008

In David Kohn's ranting about wasteful food aid, he gets one thing right - the United States is wasting a lot of money on its foreign aid program, although not for the reasons he cites ("It's time to stop a tragic waste," Commentary, May 11).

First and foremost, as long as there are hungry senior citizens and children in this nation, not one slice of bread should be sent "over there," wherever that might be.

In many instances, we give food relief to countries that hate us and often oppose the United States in the United Nations.

Mr. Kohn opposes the policy of purchasing this food from our own producers, and would rather we spend that money outside our troubled economy to purchase food aid in the countries that need it.

There is a hint of lunacy here: If the countries that need the food have it to sell to us to give back to them, why must the United States play this costly, wasteful and crazy role of middle man?

If those countries have the food to sell, let them give it to their own people.

If we have to purchase food to give away, why not allow our own farmers to profit? What is wrong with that idea?

Under Mr. Kohn's plan, we not only would be penalizing U.S. taxpayers by having them fund our generosity but also would be unnecessarily harming our own food industry by spending those tax dollars outside of our depressed economy.

That is insanity.

Bob Di Stefano

Abingdon

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