The U.S. Senate soon could debate whether you, your spouse and each of your
children – as well as your in-laws, parents, grandparents, neighbors
and everyone else in America – each will spend $2,500 or more to reduce
poverty around the world.
The plan sponsored by Sen. Barack
Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is estimated
to cost the U.S. some $845 billion over the coming few years in an effort
to raise the standard of living around the globe.
S.2433 already has been approved in one form by the U.S. House of Representatives
and now has been placed on the Senate Legislative Calendar for pending debate.
WND previously
reported the proposal demands the president develop "and implement" a
policy to "cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015 through aid, trade,
debt relief" and other programs.
Cliff Kincaid at Accuracy in Media has
published a critique asserting that while the Global Poverty Act sounds nice,
the adoption could "result in the imposition of a global tax on the United
States" and would make levels of U.S. foreign aid spending "subservient to
the dictates of the United
Nations."
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He said the legislation, if approved, dedicates 0.7 percent of the U.S.
gross national product to foreign aid, which over 13 years, he said, would
amount to $845 billion "over and above what the U.S. already spends."
The plan passed the House in 2007 "because most members didn't realize what
was in it," Kincaid reported. "Congressional sponsors
have been careful not to calculate the amount of foreign aid spending that
it would require."
A recent statement from Obama's office noted the support offered by the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
"With billions of people living on just dollars a day around the world,
global poverty remains one of the greatest challenges and tragedies the international
community faces," Obama said. "It must be a priority of American foreign
policy to commit to eliminating extreme poverty and ensuring every child
has food, shelter, and clean drinking water. As we strive to rebuild America's
standing in the world, this important bill will demonstrate our promise and
commitment to those in the developing world.
"Our commitment to the global economy must extend beyond trade agreements
that are more about increasing profits than about helping workers and small
farmers everywhere," he continued.
Another critic, however, has been commentator Glenn Beck, whose YouTube
video critique can be seen here:
"Not one dime would go to fixing America," the commentary said.
Obama has continued to lobby for such massive expenditures on his campaign
stops. During an address as recently as last week, he said, "I'll double
our foreign assistance to $50 billion by 2012, and use it to support a stable
future in failing states, and sustainable growth in Africa; to halve global
poverty and to roll back disease."
Beck and Kincaid pointed out that the plan not only commits the U.S. to
the anti-poverty spending proposal, it also adopts for the U.S. the United
Nations Millennium Development Goal, which includes a variety of treaties
and protocols advocated by the U.N.
Objections have remained strong. Duane
Lester, writing at the All American blogger, warned that the U.S. has
yet to be able to win its own war on poverty.
"On January 8, 1964, President Lyndon Johnson declared "all-out war on human
poverty and unemployment in these United States." This "all-out war" would
last through the presidencies of Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, H.W. Bush,
Clinton, and George W. Bush. We have spent billions of dollars fighting this
war, and what have we achieved?"
He continued, "Very little. In 1964, there were 36 million Americans living
in poverty, or about 19 percent of the population. In the 40 years between
1964 and 2004: ... poverty never measured less than 11 percent of the population.
In 1983, under President Reagan, poverty registered 15.2 percent; in 1993,
at the beginning of Bill
Clinton's presidency, poverty was measured at 13.7 percent of the population.
In 2004, under George W. Bush, a president often accused by the political
Left as not caring about the poor, the poverty rate declined to 12.7 percent.
Still, some 37 million Americans remain poor."
Despite that performance, "Obama is ready to take the fight global," said
Lester.
"In addition to seeking to eradicate poverty, that declaration commits nations
to banning 'small arms and light weapons' and ratifying a series of treaties,
including the International Criminal Court Treaty, the Kyoto Protocol (global
warming treaty), the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on
the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and the Convention
on the Rights of the Child," he wrote.
Tom DeWeese at NewsWithViews said
the plan "is very telling" about what Obama would do as president.
DeWeese, president of the American Policy Center, warned the over-arching
plan includes the ideals of consolidating all international agencies under
the U.N., regulation by the U.N. of all corporate environmental issues, license
fees charged by the U.N. to use air, water and natural resources, a restructuring
that would give hand-picked non-governmental organizations huge influence,
authorize a standing U.N. army and
require registration of all arms.
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