By David Gushee
Many of the most important public-policy choices facing the United States occur quietly and out of the spotlight. This has the benefit of making them less susceptible to demagoguery and politicking. But, conversely, it means that we might not be paying attention to things we should care about.
Last week I had the privilege of participating in a consultation at Wheaton College on one of those quiet, obscure policy issues: U.S. foreign assistance, or the money committed in the federal budget to economic-development programs in other nations. The consultation was co-hosted by Bread for the World, Micah Challenge and the Center for Applied Christian Ethics at Wheaton. It was a hugely informative conversation that left me much more interested in engaging these issues in days to come.
We live in a world of gross and stunning economic disparities. All of us are of equal worth in God’s sight, equally made in God’s image and equally the objects of God’s saving love in Jesus Christ — but the 7 billion human beings who share this planet do not share anything approaching a common standard of living. Grotesque extremes of poverty and wealth displease God and ought to appall anyone with a moral compass set to the true north of biblical faith.
The U.N. General Assembly, as long ago as 1970, approved a resolution urging the wealthier nations of the world to give 0.7 percent of their gross national product to fight poverty. For the United States, as of 2007 that would have amounted to just over $100 billion. By contrast, our foreign-assistance budget for fiscal year 2007 was $28.9 billion.
Individuals and non-profits based in the United States gave as much as $6 billion on top of this, but even if we put both figures together we continue to fall well short of what seems a very reasonable goal.
Why would the United States care to spend even a penny on foreign assistance, especially in a time of budget deficits? It is widely agreed in the pragmatic community of foreign-policy analysts that foreign-assistance dollars are a wise investment on the part of the United States. When these dollars are spent wisely on programs that work — which is often (though not always) the case — they improve the conditions for the poorest of the poor around the world. This reduces the kind of desperation that engenders political extremism, instability, mass population movements and terrorism. It also creates feelings of respect and gratitude toward the United States, enhancing our moral standing.
We heard at the Wheaton conference about several foreign-assistance efforts on the part of the United States government that have indeed made a real, positive difference. One of these is President Bush’s PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Program For AIDS Reduction) effort. Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, who served in the White House during the Bush years and helped inspire the former president to embrace this program, told us about the huge impact of the billions of dollars that have been spent to reduce the spread and mortality of AIDS in Africa. AIDS remains a huge threat, especially to the people of that suffering continent, but this particular foreign-assistance program has saved and improved millions of lives. I want to applaud the former president (and Gerson) for this important program.
We also heard from retired Adm. Tim Ziemer about another health-related program administered by the executive branch, the President’s Malaria Initiative, which Ziemer leads. This effort to combat malaria, again focused on Africa, has also saved and improved the lives of untold numbers of people.
The consensus at the Wheaton conference seemed to be that these health-related forms of foreign aid often have worked better than programs aimed specifically at economic development. The best economic-development program, of course, is a job. Even better is a thriving economy that produces enough quality jobs for the entire work-capable population. The conference revealed the enormous complexity of issues related to our globalized economy. My own paper was not the only one that suggested that any consideration of U.S. foreign assistance must be integrated with a discussion of the often-negative impact on the world’s poor of U.S. trade and agricultural policies, as well as the approaches taken by U.S.-dominated international economic institutions.
So, Christian readers, we find ourselves forced to get into the weeds on these kinds of issues if we want to be responsible Christian citizens. We have to pay attention to what might seem like obscure issues like foreign assistance and agricultural subsidies. A people called to love and serve the poor can do no less.