Deseret News: Jay Evensen: Think the U.S. should cut foreign aid? Think again
Jay Evensen, senior editorial columnist for Deseret News

“…[T]he world now has disease and preventable childhood deaths on the run … The United Nations and many other organizations are making this happen, but the United States is a primary force behind the good news. … Nations that get a handle on the epidemic of dying babies are less likely to succumb to radical ideologies that threaten peace in the rest of the world. Poor health, poverty, and despair provide fertile ground for violent alternatives. … [U.S. spending on foreign aid] represents a much smaller percentage of the economy than what many other nations give. That isn’t so much an argument to give more as it is to not cut back on what the nation currently gives. If we’ve learned anything over the last 20 years, it is that pandemics, desperation, and radicalization don’t quietly confine themselves to small corners of the world” (9/21).