Survey results should always be treated with caution, especially when asking about attitudes on topics where people may like to present themselves as more generous than they really are, but it is hard to dismiss the consistent findings that Americans are woefully ignorant about their country's dismal foreign aid record. What people would really want to do, once they knew the truth, is less clear. They have not been offered an opportunity to vote on the issue. No recent American president, or presidential contender with realistic prospects of success, has even tried to make foreign aid a major policy issue. America's failure to pull its weight in the fight against poverty is, therefore, due not only to the ignorance of the American public but also to the moral deficiencies of its political leaders.
(Peter Singer, One World: The Ethics of Globalization, The Terry Lectures [New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002], 184-5)
