Brother Derbyshire has made an excellent point on how public charity can diminish private charity, a point

further illustrated by The Nation’s John Nichols, who opines today

on the “proper” amount the U.S. should be spending on tsunami relief “Bush Fails a Global Test”):

Over the critical period of the next several months, the U.S. should
provide at least as much money to rebuilding southern Asia as it does to
maintain the occupation of Iraq – a figure Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld last year put at roughly $3.9 billion a month but that is, in
reality, much higher. Committing as much to aiding southern Asia as is now
being spent to occupy Iraq would signal that the U.S. wants to rejoin the
world community.

A thought experiment: how could sums of such magnitude be efficiently spent

in a region, given this fact:

While economic losses from the catastrophe are expected to exceed $13
billion, global insurers estimate their losses will be “in the low
single-digit billions,” says Matthew Josefowicz, manager for Celent
Communications, a financial consulting group. By comparison, last fall’s
Florida hurricanes triggered 2.2 million claims and cost the industry more
than $20 billion.

Despite American generosity, there are still Floridians in need because of

shortages of building supplies and the skilled workers needed to make

repairs. Such shortages will only be multiplied in East Asia.

Having money and aid workers falling all over each other to demonstrate the

depth of our compassion is likely to lead only to higher rebuilding costs,

waste, fraud and abuse.

Seems like liberals are all full of ideas on who should be giving

money. Bonus-rich Wall Street brokers are a popular choice. The Washington Post’s Sally Jenkins nominated America’s football-playing colleges: “The big

football schools should take all that ill-gotten Bowl Championship Series

money, $14.3 million each, and send it to Phuket. Come on guys, feed the

world.”

Not one of these articles insisting upon enormous generosity by others has

begun thusly: “While personally donating my own money to the relief effort,

I had an idea …” Too many liberals seem to believe charity should begin

anywhere but from their own purse. Or as a smart man once defined liberalismas “where A meets with B to decide how much C will

give to D.”