A question, regarding the floods in Pakistan.

**Lady's Human** · 08-29-2010, 09:06 PM

US foreign aid is actually about 20-30 billion per year.

**lizbud** · 08-30-2010, 10:45 AM

Originally Posted by Lady's Human

US foreign aid is actually about 20-30 billion per year.

.....and some US schools are asking children to bring their own toilet paper
to school with them. How does that make any sense?

**Lady's Human** · 08-30-2010, 11:26 AM

Being that school budgets are (or should be ) a local item, all that tells me is that we have school districts who can't budget.

**lizbud** · 08-30-2010, 04:31 PM

Originally Posted by Lady's Human

Being that school budgets are (or should be ) a local item, all that tells me is that we have school districts who can't budget.

Perhaps I shouldn't have used your quote specifically to hang my comments on. But, it was what I was thinking, so...

Communities generally budget very well for the funds (taxes,fees) they
collect, but with the bad economy & people out of work, budgets are much
tighter then they have ever been.

**Catty1** · 08-30-2010, 05:19 PM

Every Sunday afternoon there is a national call-in radio show on CBC called "Cross-Country Checkup", and the donating to Pakistan was the topic.

One young woman, a Pakistani-Canadian, said that so many people in her home country don't trust the government at all. However, she and some friends contacted family and friends in Pakistan, and after verifying that these people there could actually get to the disaster areas, they are channeling their money to those individuals. Then these people in Pakistan buy the supplies and take them directly to where they are needed.

Also, there are NGOs like Doctors Without Borders and the Red Cross...hopefully not having to deal with the government!

For those who wish, the show can be heard via MP3, podcast, or right on the site:
http://www.cbc.ca/checkup/archives.html