A question over at the ONE Campaign blog:

Why don’t these celebrities cough up their own money and stop asking for mine?

Answer: First off, they are. Most of the celebs involved in the campaign give hundreds of thousands, if not millions to charity. They just choose not make it public. But this campaign is not about asking you for YOUR money either, we want your voice. We are also talking about BILLIONS of dollars here. Not millions. If all the celebs in Hollywood banded together it still wouldn’t touch the amount that the G8 countries could give.

Well, as you read on, it is actually about “YOUR money.”

If the USA agreed mit an additional ONE percent of its budget, or 25 billion dollars per year, it would cost every American 23 cents a day. I’m ready to do that if it saves lives…are you?

Why use the US government as a middleman, and a bureaucratic and inefficient one at that? Why not ask for 23 cents directly from the individual person?

Perhaps because then the answer might be no, but if you use the coercive power of government, no one can say no. And of course, the question is really if the same old types of aid and patterns of giving to African governments really will save lives. If corrupt governments haven’t been trustworthy with a little, why should they be trusted with a lot? (See Matthew 25:23)