Farming and Your Freedom

One of the problems, at least in the view of many, has been the fact that worthy programs to feed the hungry and take care of those in desperate need, are created by the congress only to be emasculated by Bush Administration promulgators.
When you are running historically high deficits, a raging war in Iraq, and operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East, and you've cut taxes to the bone for the wealthy, one way to recoup is to cut, cut, cut. The trouble is the problems don't go away with the programs designed to alleviate them. They fester, they grow and they come back to haunt you.
Many in the Senate feel that way about making sure that the mass victims of the recent Indian Ocean tsunami receive all the relief America can make available. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that some two million survivors in 12 countries will require food aid since much of the native fishing industry has been destroyed or damaged and important rice growing areas in Indonesia and Sri Lanka were torn apart by the greatest natural disaster ever witnessed by anyone alive today.
When you stack these crying needs atop the high pile of already pressing problems, such as HIV/AIDS in Africa and starvation in strife-ridden, war-torn areas of the world, you've got a massive job to do. Cutting funds is not the answer. America has to lead in this battle even as we strive to lead the world militarily and espouse democracy around the globe. You don't care much about voting and niceties of debate and opinion if you are starving to death, have no home, or are ducking bullets and bombs on a regular basis.
While the need rises dramatically in many parts of the world, resources are stretched pretty thin in handling the outpouring of need, and it doesn't help when the U.S., long the leader in providing aid to the world's poor, cuts its programs that have direct benefit in that aid effort.
For instance, the McGovern-Dole (named for liberal and conservative senators who led a bipartisan effort to create it) school lunch program that provides food to schools in developing (read really poor) nations has been cut from $300 million in its first year of operation to $50 million by the Bush Administration two years ago.
The program's budget has grown a bit since then, but is still only at $86 million at a time when the world is in desperate need. Food aid organizations say the original $300 million is required--and more. (As an aside, multi-billionaire Bill Gates spoke out the other day saying that the great scandal of our age has been our refusal to help poor children around the world climb out of poverty so they can grow and become educated.)
Thankfully, a bipartisan group comprised of almost half of the U.S. Senate has written to President Bush asking him to request more money this year to handle the quantum growth in need worldwide, according to information quoted by @griculture Online.
Headed by Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Ia.), the group has said that even before the tsunami tragedy which took the comparative lives of a large U.S. city (over 220,000 so far), that "customary food aid contributions by the United States and other donor countries were expected to fall $1.2 billion short of emergency needs worldwide as of Dec. 9, 2004."
The senators did not specify how much Bush should ask for, but Harkin told @griculture Online that it should be at least $1 billion, mainly for emergency needs only. The letter has strong bipartisan support because it was signed by 29 Democrats and 14 Republicans, including powerful Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar and Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, head of the Senate Finance Committee.
Grassley said last week that he thinks the chances for a favorable response from Bush are good. "With that number of senators pursuing it we don't think it will be ignored by the White House."
When the letter was sent, Harkin stated flatly, "If there is one thing America has in abundance it is food." He's right, this is our chance to shine.

I'll see ya!