Why, why no American pie?

8216;8216;We don8217;t do enough,8217;8217; said Nigel Purvis, a development expert at the Brookings Institution, who worked for Bush and President Bill Clinton. 8216;8216;We are a large nation and a wealthy nation and we have the capacity to do more per person than a lot of other countries and we don8217;t.8217;8217;

Much of the money set aside for disaster assistance is earmarked for Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2004, the US Agency for International Development AID slashed payments to Save the Children, Care USA and other relief groups helping African, Asian and Latin American nations.

Not everyone agrees. Edward Fox, AID8217;s assistant administrator, defends Bush8217;s foreign aid expenditures. 8216;8216;The US is not a charitable organisation where we provide assistance without regard to its purpose,8217;8217; he said. 8216;8216;It8217;s part of our foreign policy. Nobody8230;expects us to take care of the rest of the world.8217;8217;

AID, which distributes the money, has surprisingly little discretion on how it is spent; the White House and Congress set specific targets. Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Colombia, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the UN all get large slices of the foreign aid pie.

And, with the Bush administration8217;s focus on the war on terrorism, aid dollars are increasingly tied to rewarding friends Pakistan and isolating enemies.

The OECD, in research echoed by the Congressional Research Service, reports that the US allocates only .14 per cent of its GNP for foreign aid. Of the world8217;s 30 wealthiest countries, America ranks last. The Dutch government spends 208 per citizen per year on aid to developing countries. The US spends 47 per person.

The South Asian crisis will ratchet up foreign giving. The American Red Cross received 18 million in tsunami-related donations. CARE USA accepted more than 9 million from the public as of Friday. 8212;NYT