For many years the US has been funding the Peace Corps. The object seems to be to improve the lives of poor people throughout the world, even countries not friendly towards us. We even have volunteers in China. How benevolent we are. Doesn't this make you feel good ?
A few days ago the Peace Corps announced that, for safety reasons, it was withdrawing its volunteers from Honduras. This is a tiny impoverished South American country with a population of scarcely 6,000,000 souls. They withdrew an astonishing 128 volunteers. There are a large number of poor countries in Africa, Asia and South America. We send an indeterminate number of volunteers to almost all of them.
Although it was not possible for me to determine the number of countries and the number of volunteers, I deduced that the numbers are certainly in the many thousands. From a statistic buried in an article on the inter net, I was able to make an educated guess that the program costs about $ 500,000,000. This is chump change by Washington standards. What a bargain, we are told.
Has this bought us much good will ? Much of the world hates us. This is a stupid, wasteful program. It seems like an excellent place to start cutting the federal deficit . Lets get rid of the Peace corps. That would make me feel good.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Interesting post Dad. I believe some of our family members disagree with you. I would need to have more information as to whether the Peace Corps have done any good or not and there is much to cut from the Federal Budget so not sure this is the first that needs to go.
Like Amy, I really don't know too much about the Peace Corps. Fairly modern, only since 1961, and in today's dollars, just under 400 mil, so your number was pretty close.
However, Amy is also correct, there are many some who would disagree. You are wrong in your argument's premise that one of the goals of the Peace Corps is to get the world to think better of us. Won't find that in their mission or vision statements.
Even if it was one of their goals, I think a myriad other antagonistic US actions would likley overwhelm the benefit the peace corps could provide.
Stupid program - your opinion.
Wasteful? I would challenge you to support that argument. Unless you are using wasteful in a value jugdment way. Again, I don't know enough to make the call, but I suspect you don't either.
A guy I used to work with served in the Peace Corps for several years. He and his wife were teaching people how to build wells somewhere in Africa so they would not have to travel several miles to fetch dirty water from the river. His claim was that one of the goals was to reduce infant mortality and thus, control population growth. This may seem counterintuitive, but his claim was that when less infants died, women stopped having quite so many children with the goal of having one or two survive. My memory may be a bit foggy on some of the details since I knew this guy over 20 years ago... This type of "intervention" seems like a small investment if it reduces disease, famine, or even population explosion. It is much cheaper than some of the alternatives.
Oh, Granddad. The Peace Corps states that it has 3 goals:
1. Helping the people of interested countries in meeting their need for trained men and women.
2. Helping promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served.
3. Helping promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans.
Now, I don't want to play Devil's Advocate here (though you know I do) by comparing apples and oranges, but here goes- when compared to our 2010 military budget of $$663 Billion, 500 million comes out to roughly .07%--less than one tenth of one percent of what we spend on "defense".
I know a lot of people who served in the PC. Most of them are now working for the United Nations, some are working as diplomats. The Peace Corps produces most of the American people who work in the World Bank, IMF, and the UN. Such is the trajectory of people who do volunteer work of this nature.
The critiques I hear of the Peace Corps are that in some areas the volunteerism creates dependency. Most of the stories I hear are incredibly positive.
You may be interested to know that many years ago, when I was stranded in a tiny sub-Saharan town in Morocco, what helped me most was a kind young man who had been taught English by Peace Corps volunteers.
This is one program I would like to see stay. It benefits many people in many countries, including our own by bringing about goodwill and softening judgements about Americans.
Just my 2 cents.
In other news, can you believe this? Wouldn't a real pack animal be cheaper and more efficient?
http://youtu.be/xY42w1w0TWk
Post a Comment