One of the local news stations brought up a very interesting point that I thought I would share with you here.

Do we rally around other countries more than we rally around the citizens of our own? Let me preface this by saying that I think it is one of the most important things that you can ever do to help others in their time of need. My only question is, however, why does it seem that when another country experiences a disaster we seem to respond in such a better way than the way we do for the own needs of our country.

Here are a few statistics that I dug up:

• As of last year, 35.9 million people live below the poverty line in America, including 12.9 million children
• 3.5 percent of U.S. households experience hunger (33 million Americans continue to live in households that do not have an adequate supply of food. Nearly one-third of these households contain adults or children who went hungry at some point in 2000).
• Hurricane Katrina killed at least 1,836 people and inflicted damages estimated at around $125 billion (many people are still feeling the effects of not being able to return back to their homes).
• The current economic decline produced job losses in excess of 2,000,000.

These are serious issues, in our own backyard! I know that we should've supported victims of the Tsunami in Sri Lanka. I know that we should help the earthquake victims of Haiti. (I even have this post that encourages others to do so.) My concern, and the concern of others, however, is that we have such an overwhelming response to other countries that it makes me wonder why the same response doesn't consistently happen here in the U.S.

Why does it seem that we, as a nation of individual citizens, don't rally enough around the poor to provide proper shelter and food for them? Why did it take the government so long to respond to victims of Katrina and why have we not overwhelmingly responded to get the displaced citizens, who want to go back, an opportunity to do so? Why are we still spending money wastefully on things that we don't need while people lose their homes in wake of this economic decline?

What do you think?