Visit to Durbin's Office: July 15, 2008

I suppose this is second in a series...a write-up my RESULTS lobby visits to my members of Congress...

After Obama's office we trotted over to Senator Richard Durbin's office to meet with 2 of his aides. His office is much different than Obama's. A little fancier in the furnishings...a flat screen TV showing CSPAN-2 in the lobby which houses two receptionists instead of one. When we walked in, Senator Demint was speaking against the existing Lantos-Hyde global health bill and in support of one of the amendments...I forget which. The three of us gathered around the TV making various grumbling noises. One receptionist politely offered us seats and we all said "NO!.....um, we mean, we're fine...we're good...umm...that's our bill they're talking about...sorry..."

We were admitted in to speak with two foreign policy aides who work together. Very nice and warm people. We gave our thank you's for Durbin: Global Poverty Act support, general support for fighting against TB, and I couldn't resist throwing in a Farm Bill thank you as well since I had written an LTE in the Wash Times about that. We gave him the same requests about Lantos-Hyde and appropriations (see yesterday's post) and asked him to speak to his colleagues in support of the GPA. The conversation with these aides was much more back-and-forth than with Obama's aide. They asked about what requests we would make of the representatives we'd be seeing later, so we told them about a micro-finance letter to the World Bank that would be circulating for the reps to sign. We'd be asking for them to sign onto that and to co-sponsor a Congressional Medal for Mohammed Yunus for his micro-finance work. This was my favorite part of the meeting. One of the aides asked for our help on that Medal ask since it was his job to contact all the IL reps office's on behalf of Durbin to convince them to sign on. It felt really good to be able to do that aide a favor...like a real working relationship. Perhaps a small thing, but I like to think we are working with them in partnership!

Anyway, we hustled out of there right after the meeting ended and got up to the top of the Senate as quickly as we could. I feel so lucky that we got there in time to see Durbin giving his closing remarks on a speech in support of Lantos-Hyde and specifically in support of fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa. It was a mere hours before the vote. He was speaking to a largely empty room on the floor unfortunately, but anyone watching CSPAN-2 was getting it! We couldn't say anything of course, but had he looked up into the gallery, he would have seen our silent applause and fist pumping at the end. I feel so lucky to have Durbin as my senator!

The Truth about the Global Poverty Act (#2)

Myth #2 about the Global Poverty Act (from Bread for the World)

MYTH: The bill subordinates U.S. foreign policy and foreign aid spending to the United Nations.

TRUTH: The Global Poverty Act would ask U.S. agencies and departments headed by the Secretary of State, to develop a comprehensive strategy for U.S. programs and policies to eliminate extreme global poverty. This would be a U.S. strategy for U.S. agencies. The legislation does not prejudge what the details of the strategy should be—only what components should be included in its creation. Decisions on U.S. policy and spending would remain exclusively with the U.S. government.


Truth About Global Poverty Act link

The Truth about the Global Poverty Act (#1)

Bread for the World has put out a very clear info sheet about the Global Poverty Act (S 2433). Here is the link to it:

The Truth about the Global Poverty Act

If there is any doubt about any of these, remember, the GPA is a very short piece of legislation. You can always read it for yourself to confirm what you read here! Here's the first mythbuster...

MYTH: The Global Poverty Act would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of its gross national product on foreign aid. This would require a new tax on all Americans.

TRUTH: The legislation neither authorizes nor obligates the federal government to spend more money. Rather, it seeks to put our current foreign aid programs into a comprehensive strategy involving trade policy, debt cancellation, and private sector efforts to ensure that existing U.S. programs are more effective and efficient. The legislation calls for a strategy to determine the right mix of aid, trade and debt policies and investment. The strategy also includes the private sector, civil society organizations, and the developing countries themselves as critical components in global development. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the bill would cost less than $1 million to implement.

Recipe for Hope Week #4

Week Four of Bread for the World's "Recipe for Hope" campaign. Read about an aspect of the current food crisis (Ingredient for Despair) and find out how to take action in a positive way (Recipe for Hope)
----------------------------------------------------
Ingredient for Despair: Government Subsidies for Farmers

Farmers in the United States, Japan, and the European Union receive government subsidies which often encourage overproduction and distort prices. They may even give farmers incentives that run entirely contrary to common sense.

For example, current commodity programs create an incentive for farmers to grow cotton in desert states like Arizona, where water for irrigation is scarce. In turn, artificially low prices for this subsidized cotton can prevent farmers in poor countries, such as Mali and Burkina Faso, from selling their cotton crops for a fair price and being able to feed their families. Subsidies to farmers in developed countries also hinder development of agriculture in poor countries, exacerbating the growing world food crisis.

Bread for the World Institute discusses this issue in detail in chapter three of its annual hunger report, Healthy Food, Farms & Families: Hunger 2007

Ingredients for Hope:

Our Recipe for Hope has two components—something you can do; and something you can say to our nation’s leaders.

Watch, rate, and forward this YouTube video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZRbxMxB1GA
This one-minute piece is a great way to help spread the word about getting involved in the fight against the global hunger crisis. As you watch and rate videos on YouTube, they attract the attention of more people. So spread the word!

Call your senators:
Call your senators and ask them to cosponsor the Global Poverty Act (S. 2433). Use this special toll-free number, and ask to be transferred to your senator's office: 1-800-826-3688. Find out who your senators are.

Talking Points:
We can make sure that our assistance has the greatest impact on the people who need it the most by improving the effectiveness of our development programs.

-Trade policies of the U.S. government often undercut our efforts to help hungry and poor people around the world provide for their families.

-The Global Poverty Act can help prevent situations like the current hunger crisis by requiring a coordinated strategy across the U.S. government to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015.

Criticisms of the Global Poverty Act

This "anonymous" comment just popped up on a very old post of mine about the Global Poverty Act. Since there is likely to be a lot of debate and misconceptions about this legislation this year, I thought the dialogue was worth bringing up to the front....
--------------------------------------------
"Why would you want American citizens to be taxed more in order to give money to the UN, who then will steal as much as possible and give the rest to nations who will steal some more, then give the remainder to people who hate us in the first place? This "act" and people like yourself who support such nonsense are what is wrong with this country today."- anonymous

Here's my reply...
"I'm always amazed at how free "anonymous" is to be rude and accusatory in tone!

Anonymous, I suggest you read the post again and perhaps read the actual Global Poverty Act. Neither one actually mentions a tax. That would be a subject of another post. But to address some of your other concerns...

The UN and the World Bank and other institutions are, no doubt, imperfect organizations. But that does not excuse us from participating in the effort to save millions of innocents from dying.

History has shown we've been unable to eradicate extreme poverty (which kills more people than wars, tsunamis, cyclones and earthquakes) with just charity groups and individuals. The problems are simply too complex and, in many cases, political. To characterize this bill as a "tax" is not only inaccurate, but also ignoring the bigger picture of getting our country to work with others. The GPA would require us to have a plan and to optimize the way our existing federal orgs do development work. We need to have the federal government involved to help facilitate the good work that fed programs, individuals, charities and corporations already do.

Why would we want this? Here are a few out of many reasons:

-We harm so many impoverished nations with our own policies (farm subsidies, for example), it is only logical that we work to undo or mitigate the damage we ourselves cause.

- Failing governments with citizens in extreme poverty cultivate desperation and resentment... which creates a breeding ground for organizations who would resent a wealthy, consumer culture like ours. There are plenty of people who don't "hate" us, but harmful economic policies and lack of cooperation with the rest of the world could certainly push them over to that viewpoint.

-As far as helping people who hate us...do the millions of children under 5 who die from easily preventable and treatable diseases deserve our apathy? If you had a starving child suffering from malaria, I would want to help you even if you were not fond of me.

Anyway, if I were to make an accusation about what is "wrong" with this country, I would not point at you...someone I don't even know. I would say it is policies like the US Farm Bill that keep farmers in developing nations into extreme poverty while oppressing our own farmers and rural families of modest means. That is something wrong with our country that we can fix.

Thank you for adding to the conversation about ending poverty. It's a conversation this nation desperately needs to have."

ONE campaign: "On the Record" '08

Here’s a handy little tool from the ONE campaign that lets you compare the preidential candidates’ statements about global poverty.

http://www.onevote08.org/ontherecord/

These are rather old, they went up sometime last summer. I thought it was noteworthy that Obama and Clinton mention supporting the Millennium Development Goals while McCain did not….then again Clinton and McCain both speak of eradicating malaria and Obama doesn’t. Hard to read much into these early campaign promises. It’s much more noticeable to see that Clinton and McCain are not S 2433 (Global Poverty Act) sponsors because that’s a matter of Senate record.

Somalia today: Food Riots with Fatalities

"I've never demonstrated before, but I'm not ashamed because if you can't eat, you will do whatever you can," said Abdullahi Mohammed, 57, of Mogadishu. "Before I was eating three times a day, but now sometimes it's not even once."

This quote from the LA Times coverage of today's food riot in Somalia really leapt out at me. The food riots have started and are well underway in the developing world. Today, the issue was that shops refused to accept the Somali shilling, preventing citizens to buy food with the only currency they could hold. Gunfire and grenades were used upon the looting protesters in Mogadishu. I am heartbroken considering that more of the same is sure to come. I think of the irritability I feel when I fast. I think about the love I have for my children. I think about how small my fasting irritation would be in comparison to the desperation and unfocused wrath I would feel if extreme hunger were coupled with watching my beloved starve. I think I might be out burning tires as well and (if I thought I could get away with it to feed my children)...looting. Not the most moral admission, but an honest one.

France said that it would double it's food aid to Somalia. I don't know what that amount would be, but it is a call for all of "developed nations" to live up to our Millennium Development Goal commitments. We said we would help and we didn't. And now there are people dying in the streets over rice. It won't be fast enough to help the people in Somalia in the short term, but passage of the Global Poverty Act is critical...not only to get our ball rolling in providing more and better poverty-focused development assistance, but to tell the rest of the world we give a damn about people besides ourselves.

UN Resolution 55/2

An anonymous commenter brought up an UN resolution that other people might be interested in seeing as well. UN Resolution 55/2 was adopted by the General Assembly of the UN on September 18, 2000. It is chock-full of a lot of stuff, but contains points relevant to the Millennium Development Goals and, consequently, the Global Poverty Act. It also contains language about supporting the Kyoto Protocol and other things.

Here is where you can find it: http://www.un.org/millennium/declaration/ares552e.pdf

People familiar with the MDG's will see some very familiar language here in some of the anti-poverty highlights:
"III. Development and poverty eradication
11. We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanizing conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected. We are committed to making the right to development a reality for everyone and to freeing the entire human race from want.
12. We resolve therefore to create an environment – at the national and global levels alike – which is conducive to development and to the elimination of poverty. "

"19. We resolve further:
•To halve, by the year 2015, the proportion of the world’s people whose income is less than one dollar a day and the proportion of people who suffer from hunger and, by the same date, to halve the proportion of people who are unable to reach or to afford safe drinking water.
•To ensure that, by the same date, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling and that girls and boys will have equal access to all levels of education.
•By the same date, to have reduced maternal mortality by three quarters, and under-five child mortality by two thirds, of their current rates.
•To have, by then, halted, and begun to reverse, the spread of HIV/AIDS, the scourge of malaria and other major diseases that afflict humanity.
•To provide special assistance to children orphaned by HIV/AIDS.
•By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers as proposed in the “Cities Without Slums” initiative. "

Link to read the actual Global Poverty Act

Look what I found! The Global Poverty Act itself. If you would like to look at it for yourself, take a gander at this link.

http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c110:S.2433:

I just read it and, as promised, it has no mention of any specific amount of money to be put into a Presidential plan for development assistance, despite what Limbaugh and Kincaid might be saying. Here are the meaty parts of it:

"SEC. 3. DECLARATION OF POLICY.
It is the policy of the United States to promote the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.

SEC. 4. REQUIREMENT TO DEVELOP COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGY.
(a) Strategy- The President, acting through the Secretary of State, and in consultation with the heads of other appropriate departments and agencies of the United States Government, international organizations, international financial institutions, the governments of developing and developed countries, United States and international nongovernmental organizations, civil society organizations, and other appropriate entities, shall develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.
(b) Content- The strategy required by subsection (a) shall include specific and measurable goals, efforts to be undertaken, benchmarks, and timetables to achieve the objectives described in subsection (a).
(c) Components- The strategy required by subsection (a) should include the following components:
(1) Continued investment or involvement in existing United States initiatives related to international poverty reduction, such as the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003 (22 U.S.C. 7601 et seq.), the Millennium Challenge Act of 2003 (22 U.S.C. 7701 et seq.), and trade preference programs for developing countries, such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (19 U.S.C. 3701 et seq.).
(2) Improving the effectiveness of development assistance and making available additional overall United States assistance levels as appropriate.
(3) Enhancing and expanding debt relief as appropriate.
(4) Leveraging United States trade policy where possible to enhance economic development prospects for developing countries.
(5) Coordinating efforts and working in cooperation with developed and developing countries, international organizations, and international financial institutions.
(6) Mobilizing and leveraging the participation of businesses, United States and international nongovernmental organizations, civil society, and public-private partnerships.
(7) Coordinating the goal of poverty reduction with other development goals, such as combating the spread of preventable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, increasing access to potable water and basic sanitation, reducing hunger and malnutrition, and improving access to and quality of education at all levels regardless of gender.
(8) Integrating principles of sustainable development and entrepreneurship into policies and programs.
(d) Reports-
(1) INITIAL REPORT-
(A) IN GENERAL- Not later than 1 year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the President, acting through the Secretary of State, shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees a report on the strategy required under subsection (a).
(B) CONTENT- The report required under subparagraph (A) shall include the following elements:
(i) A description of the strategy required under subsection (a).
(ii) An evaluation, to the extent possible, both proportionate and absolute, of the contributions provided by the United States and other national and international actors in achieving the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.
(iii) An assessment of the overall progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.
(2) SUBSEQUENT REPORTS- Not later than December 31, 2012, and December 31, 2015, the President shall submit to the appropriate congressional committees reports on the status of the implementation of the strategy, progress made in achieving the global poverty reduction objectives described in subsection (a), and any changes to the strategy since the date of the submission of the last report."

Thank you, Rush Limbaugh, but we're not there yet!

On the February 14, Rush Limbaugh read part of an inaccurate blog post by Cliff Kincaid on Accuracy in Media where Kincaid falsely stated that the Global Poverty Act, sponsored by Obama, "would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of gross national product on foreign aid, which amounts to a phenomenal 13-year total of $845 billion over and above what the U.S. already spends."

Wow, Rush! Thank you! If I had any criticism of the Global Poverty Act (which I don't really), it would be that the Act actually doesn't say that. I WISH it said that and was getting passed quickly. 0.7% of national growth is what I write about and dream about our country stepping up to provide for poverty-focused development aid. But beyond my own dreams, it is actually what our country already committed to providing when the United States signed on to the Millennium Development Goals in 2000. It's not the just audacity of hope that leads Obama and 9 other bi-partisan senators to co-sponsor this bill...it's the audacity to live up to commitments we, as a nation, have already made to the world. The actual Global Poverty Act would put the MDGs into US Foreign Policy and require that the president come up with a strategic plan to support the MDGs and report to Congress about it. No funding, no appropriations. It would require us to coordinate our existing departments to provide better foreign assistance and spend less of Rush Limbaugh's, Cliff Kincaid's, yours and my tax dollars on inefficient practices.

I hope someday we actually get to have the debate Rush was fearing, but we're not there yet...not yet!