Which states have the most Medicaid-funded births?

I wonder why it is that the states that most decry government spending are the ones that take the most federal money per capita to deliver their babies? Note Huckabee’s Arkansas and Palin’s Alaska and McCain’s Arizona and Barbour’s Mississippi and Jindal’s Louisiana and Demint’s S. Carolina:

clipped from facts.kff.org

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G8 balks at fulfilling aid pledges; 10 million to die?

May result in 11 million preventable deaths; only 2% of G20 stimulus package needed to keep promises. From an article by World Vision:

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com Today’s communiqué from the G8 leaders contains neither an acknowledgement they are off track on fulfilling their aid pledges, nor any concrete plans to get them back on track. In fact, there is now no way they can meet their 2005 promise to double aid for Africa by 2010. This year’s failure is particularly significant as the current economic crisis means up to 2.8 million more children could die by 2015. That’s beyond the 9.2 million who die each year of preventable causes Any excuse from G8 leaders that aid is unaffordable in an economic downturn is unacceptable. The 2005 G8 pledge of an extra $50 billion by 2010 is just 2% of the G20 stimulus package Over the 48 hours of this summit 50,000 children will die from preventable causes. At least 50% of these will be in Sub-Saharan Africa. In the absence of urgent action by the international community this means over 9 million child deaths between now and the next G8 in Canada. when the G8 chooses […] it can make a real impact on child deaths.

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Bishop of Chicago: Immigration Raids ‘Immoral’

Jim Wallis tells of a nationwide tour urging immigration reform that stopped in Chicago:

clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com Image via Wikipedia Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago, and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops … used the occasion to call on the Obama administration to stop immigration raids and urged passage of comprehensive immigration reform […] [T]he cardinal “… sought to cast the issue in moral terms, calling it “a matter of conscience” and an important step to creating a more peaceful society. ‘We cannot strengthen families when people live in fear from day to day,’ […] The continuing raids around the country [are] indeed a matter of conscience. We are taking parents from their children; we are separating families. This is not what in our tradition we should do. Protecting and supporting families and those relationships is crucial. The immigration system is totally broken and needs comprehensive reform, but it must be changed in ways that are compassionate, fair, just, and consistent with the biblical command to “welcome the stranger.” While I applaud President Obama for repeating his commitment to immigration reform last week, I join Cardinal George in also urging an immediate end to raids.

It’s an excellent thought. Wrenching families apart is not only cruel, but unwise, even in practical terms. Hurt people hurt people. Strengthening families is, indeed, “an important step to creating a more peaceful society.”

If we’re kind – or even just smart – minimizing trauma will be part of immigration reform.

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Catholic bishops denounce immigration raids as “anti-family”

From God’s Politics:

“The humanitarian costs of these raids are immeasurable and unacceptable in a civilized society” […] “many families never recover, others never reunite.”

clipped from blog.beliefnet.com Catholic Bishops Denounce Immigration Raids as Anti-Family (by Jennifer Svetlik) Last year I lived in a Catholic Worker house that offers hospitality to immigrants without first inquiring about their legal status. One day, a woman called the house on behalf of two young boys who had come home to an empty apartment; their parents had been taken in a raid, and the boys had no other relatives or friends in the country. They had been born in the U.S., but their parents were undocumented workers; the raid had traumatized and temporarily orphaned them. They were afraid to leave their home and had no idea how to locate their parents. […] The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement urging Homeland Security to discontinue worksite enforcement raids until […] “humanitarian safeguards” are put into place. The statement says, “The humanitarian costs of these raids are immeasurable and unacceptable in a civilized society” and reminds us that “many families never recover, others never reunite.”

What percent of US budget goes to foreign aid?

Public Perception of Foreign Aid

Center for Global Development (some rights reserved: click graph)

We Americans guess, on average, that 24% of our federal budget goes to development assistance. The real number? Less than one per cent.

Despite laudable recent increases in US giving to reduce poverty, US aid as a percent of personal income is second to last among wealthy nations.

We give about 25 cents per American per day [correction:] year in foreign aid; with private giving, another dime. It’s a lot, in total, because there are a lot of us. But it’s far behind the level of sacrifice made by people in most developed nations.

Further, according to the Borgen Project:

• Less than half of aid from the United States goes to the poorest countries
• The largest recipients are strategic allies such as Egypt, Israel, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq.
• Israel is the richest country to receive U.S. assistance ($77 per Israeli compared to $3 per person in poor countries).

But look what can be done:

• The U.S. was the largest single donor in a global campaign that eradicated smallpox from the world by 1977.
• The U.S. provided funding for a program to prevent river blindness in West Africa. As a result of these efforts, 18 million children now living in the program’s region are free from the risk of river blindness.

(Center for Global Development)

We can do better, at home and abroad.

Borgen cites the cost of two B-2 bombers ($4.4 billion) compared with the the annual budget for the World Food Program (largest relief agency in the world) which assists 104 million starving and malnourished people in 81 countries. Its budget? $3.2 billion.

Why not change it?  We can, you know.  Once we separate the illusions from the facts.

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Tags: foreign, policy, aid, poverty, hunger, US, budget, assistance, Monte Asbury