Famine, Affluence, and Morality

Peter Singer states in Famine, Affluence, and Morality "if it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it" (231).  He later follows this statement up by saying we should help those far away from us not just the ones who are close to us (232).  I agree that it is right to help people in need but I do not agree that we should help those far away before we have helped those who are close to us and live in our own country.  We should take care of the ones in our own country and make sure they are all have food, water, and shelter before we worry about the people from some other country.  There are many people in America that are suffering from famine and have no shelter.  We should not send money to help those far away when we can use that money to help the ones close to us first.  Once everyone within the United States is well fed and has somewhere to live then I do believe we should help others.  There are plenty of children in our own country who live on the streets because they have nowhere else to go and we send money to people from somewhere else money to make sure they have shelter, this is wrong and should not happen.  The people here suffer just as much as those from another country.  We need to put the needs of “our” people before the needs of others.  Once we have helped every single person get off the street and living somewhere with a roof here we should not worry about people from a different country.  Those in this country should be our first priority.