Global Poverty Act

Accuracy in Media posted an article in February 2008 concerning the Global Poverty Act sponsored by Barack Obama.  This is the opening paragraph:

“A nice-sounding bill called the “Global Poverty Act,” sponsored by Democratic presidential candidate and Senator Barack Obama, is up for a Senate vote on Thursday and could result in the imposition of a global tax on the United States. The bill, which has the support of many liberal religious groups, makes levels of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations.”

Does anyone remember what a mess the UN made of ‘food for oil’ or the peacekeepers raping women in Africa?  This organization needs to be kicked out of the country–not given more money.  The article continues…

“Senator Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has not endorsed either Senator Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton in the presidential race. But on Thursday, February 14, he is trying to rush Obama’s “Global Poverty Act” (S.2433) through his committee. The legislation 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.” 

We have already lost the war on poverty in this country by destroying the family in the black community and by handing out money instead of dealing with the root problems of poverty–lack of education, lack of the guidance of a healthy family unit, and a belief in the inevitability of failure.  Until we can solve our own poverty problems through education (school vouchers to remove children from failing public schools in certain communities) and support of families, we have no business throwing money overseas.

I have one personal story concerning poverty that truly opened my eyes to the difficulty in battling poverty.  I have children and grandchildren who were living in New Orleans during hurricane Katrina.  They came through relatively unscathed, but some of what they saw (and what we saw) was troubling.  For instance, many of the people of New Orleans received checks from FEMA shortly after hurricane Katrina.  New Orleans is to a large extent a miniature welfare state–there is tremendous poverty there (even before Katrina) and many of the people who received the FEMA checks had never seen that much money at one time before.  A fairly large percentage of that money found its way into the gambling casinos and strip joints.  Poverty is not totally about money–there are attitudes that have to be addressed also, and until they are addressed, there will be no improvement.  We have lost the war on poverty in this country–we need a new strategy that deals with the roots–not the symptoms.  Anyway, we don’t need to share our failure in this area with the rest of the world while taking money out of our own treasury.