Helping the World

There are many critics of America out there that claim that America needs to focus more on its global adventures than the problems we face at home, because the problems abroad are worse. I completely disagree. Just look at any number of statistics available, and you will be shocked. Not only is there severe poverty and homelessness in the United States of America, but drug problems and crime as well. Our president needs to take a step back, and realize that while yes, we are a global power and need to be involved in world affairs, we also need to take care of our citizens. I understand the fact that less than one percent of our national budget goes to foreign aid, and that that is a staggeringly low number, but I believe that one needs to be able to help them before they can help others.

Since the end of the Cold War, federal spending has declined for job training, employment programs, and low-income housing. How does this seem fair? One of the best ways to start helping our nation is from the bottom-up. We need to put money into programs that help disadvantaged people, since the spending that is being reduced is things that the president deems “unworthy” of this nation’s money. Another unfortunate statistic is that five juveniles are murdered each day in the United States. I’m going to take make a wild assumption, and say that those juveniles are not normally from rich suburbs, but the slums where they are trying to survive on their own. It doesn’t help peoples’ situations when one-third of the young people who enter high school never graduate. If you have a third of the student population out on the streets, without a high school diploma, you better be sure you are going to have problems. How else are these people supposed to get by other than stealing and getting into more trouble? I’m not saying they are justified in their actions, but they are not completely to blame. The government needs to nip these problems in the bud by putting money into schools so these teenagers are given better opportunities – even things as simple as textbooks and chalk. With forty-five percent of African Americans and other minorities in the US living in poverty, I think I know a good place to start reform. These people in poverty have no one to turn to and that is a huge issue. Since they have no one to turn to or rely on, many males are forced to turn to the streets. Did you know that black males have a greater chance of being killed by violence than the average soldier in Vietnam? That astounds me. In a country that is famed for the “American Dream,” this many people should not face such horrid circumstances. We, the citizens of this great country, should at least try a little harder to help those in need. Even if this means writing a check every once in a while to organizations in need, donating food at times other than Thanksgiving and Christmas, or even just giving a homeless man you see on the street a meal, every little bit helps. As Anne Frank so eloquently stated, “How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world."