I wrote couple of days ago about the Global Poverty Act S2433. If this bill passes, it will cost the taxpayer $ 845 billion in addition to our current foreign aid expenditure. The best part? It will be administered in conjunction with the U.N. This is about global income redistribution. Their distribution - our income. Did you hear much debate about this? So far this proposal is barely on the mainstream media radar.
How are we going to do this? Soon, there are going to be 7 billion people in this world. Why don't we export capitalism? Why don't we export democracy? Why don't we have Peace Corps and other volunteers teaching people, teaching societies how to become civilized and advanced? We, instead, attack profits, corporations, we attack business men, we attack innovations, we attack the very engine that makes our economy works, rather to urge the other countries to do the same, to follow suit.
This isn't a war on poverty, it's a war on global poverty coming out of our pockets! No more sovereignty, no more borders! No wonder the libs want open borders! In other words, the other nations would like us better if we give them our money, and our trade agreement shouldn't be about business profit, creating jobs, creating wealth, but benevolent social action.
This is a disaster on the horizon beyond which my imagination would let me go. This country was founded on the belief and natural law ( that all of us have a right to live freely and to pursue happiness). We all have property rights that all we earn through labor and time belongs to us. A small amount goes to the government to ensure the enforcement of the law and the general protection of the nation.
Liberals don't believe in natural law. God given rights. They take the concept of equality ( equal access to justice, equal access to liberty, equal access to pursue happiness, to pursue private property) and what do they say? We're all equal, not unique individual human beings. They twisted this in a sick marxist viewpoint. Equality of outcomes - that's where they are. We Americans are too rich, we are too powerful, we got to give it up, we got to downsize the way we live and who we are. We have to summit to the tyrannies of the world.
Not one word from Obama and the other leftists about what the rest of the world needs to do in order to advance it's own cause, it's own people! Not one word about their responsibilities, about how they need to reform!
NO, You and Me, the next generation, our children, they insist to be poor, they insist that the American dream that you and I pursue isn't an American dream after all, that it's a nightmare! The liberals want us to look at our country through the lenses of the glasses worn by marxists, we're supposed to measure our worth and our value based on what people overseas say about us!
Why should we do that? Are we going to learn from history or are we going over the cliff? Our children will ask us how could we do this!!!!
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4 comments:
The Global Poverty Act of 2007, simply states: “To require the President to 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.”
Currently, U.S. global development policies and programs are scattered across 12 departments, 25 different agencies, and almost 60 government offices. Increased coordination is sorely needed to be effective.
The Global Poverty Act, S.2433, is an authorizing piece of legislation which sets a directive for those departments under the Secretary of State to create a plan to address the first United Nations Millennium Development Goal.
This bill is NOT an appropriating piece of legislation that would direct any new funds (or global taxes) to United States foreign assistance. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this legislation would cost less than $1 million to implement.
S.2433 does not prejudge what the strategy should be, only that a strategy should be created to more effectively distribute the foreign aid.
The Global Poverty act does not subjugate the United States to the will of the United Nations. The strategy would apply only to those programs administered by the United States and the strategy would have complete Congressional oversight.
For more information on the myths related to this bill, please visit: http://www.bread.org/take-action/ol2008/gpa-fact-sheet.pdf.
For more information, you can easily read this bill at: http://www.thomas.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c110:./temp/~c110vneZOT
Thanks for the links. Somewhere in the Bill it says that they are "commited to increase aid to Africa from $25 billion to $50 billion". Where do you think that money will come from?
Somewhere else it says: "A world where some live in comfort and plenty, while half of the human race lives on less than $1 per day is neither just nor stable" -- this it's socialism!! Why should I work my butt of to give my money to some people who all day get a nice tan in the sun. If they like how this kind of economy got our country so great, they should copy our economic policies, not us to hand them money! It won't help at all. The saying "Teach a man how to fish..." goes well here.
Look in Sec 4: US with the international agencies develop and implement these strategies. We all know how much power UN has: a lot.
Last sentence Sec 5. (4)- The term MDG-means the goals set out in the UN Millenium Declaration, General Assembly Resolution 55/2 (2000)- Goals set by UN! Not by US! Goals set on my and your money!
I think you're kiding yourself about US not be subjugated by UN. Think "Food for oil " program.
I certainly respect your right to have your own opinion on the role of the UN, of international policy, and how government should address the rest of the world. However, I hardly believe that language about those suffering in poverty "Why should I work my butt of to give my money to some people who all day get a nice tan in the sun" is helpful for an otherwise civil discussion. I'm sure that you're not the type of person to view the plight of those who live in other countries - or in poverty for that matter - to view their lives (no matter the origins of their condition) in such a dismissive manner. I'd love to hear more about your worldview, but that type of comment does not make me respect what you have to say.
If you're interested in the way government money is spent in foreign aid, the Brookings Institute recently mapped out how all of the government agencies involved in government aid worked to distribute that aid -- it discovered that most of these agencies may be working against each other or overlapping services/funds. The money may come from realizing that 1) money is being spent twice or 2) money/funds are canceling each other out in come cases. Reducing government waste is a helpful aspect of this bill.
When you speak of the value of desiring that your tax dollars be spent effectively, I see that the Global Poverty Act is a means by which government can be decreased. Clearly, at this time, foreign aid isn't distributed well or effectively under any strategy. The Global Poverty Act simply directs all agencies that are involved in this aid to sit down at one table and see how they can more effectively work together.
I completely agree with your "teach a man to fish" comment. Poverty-focused development assistance currently accounts for half of the one percent of our nation's budget devoted to foreign assistance. These accounts build infrastructure in developing countries, establish clean water (to reduce disease, place more girls in school, etc.), distribute medications, etc. Additionally, one of these accounts is the Millennium Challenge Account, which has very strict guidelines (including proving that the developing country is well governed) before money is distributed to them. There is a tremendous amount of accountability involved in all recipients of the MCA funds, in direct response to the infamous "food for oil" scandal.
The United States signed the Millennium Declaration, and the Global Poverty Act would simply be a means by which to address those items to which we've already agreed are values of the US.
Addressing global poverty on an international level is in our best political interest. With developing countries establishing themselves within a global market, more trade can occur. Additionally, with political unrest occurring in countries of interest to Homeland Security (Afghanistan, Egypt, etc.) due to the recent steep climb in the price of food, a small amount of aid on the front side of an issue could stabilize these countries and prevent future (and costly) military interventions.
The United States, in all of its glory, is not an island. Regardless of one's views of government and how big or small it should be, the world is increasingly connected -- what we do effects other countries in the same way that another country may effect our economy (or security).
Additionally, I have to argue that to understand the United Nations as some large political entity unto itself is to deny that it is simply a body of member states... of which the United States is a part as well as the allies of the United States.
I feel that to fear the power of the UN (as some power hungry being) is to deny the influence of the United States, and its allies, as active members. To me, this is fear mongering and the creation of a philosophy that in reality, has very little to stand on. If the United States did not want to sign on to the Millennium Declaration - it simply wouldn't have. It wouldn't be the first time the United States differed with the rest of the world -- simply take the Kyoto protocol as an example.
Regardless of what one assumes might come out of S.2433, at the end of the day, it's United States agencies sitting down, making a strategy, and reporting on that strategy to Congress who has full oversight to address the plan.
I will address my opinion about UN in a new post. I want to talk here about helping the poor.
While I agree that helping the poor is a human thing to do, I do not agree on the means. Nowhere in Constitution says it is the government's job to take care of the poor world wide. I think this is a private sector issue. Americans are generous. How many millions people donated after 9/11 to help the victims and the victims' families? How many millions were donated after the tsunami hit Indonesia?
I don't like being FORCED to help anybody. I don't like to pay higher and higher taxes because the government doesn't know how to balance a budget.All these new bills about helping the poor, here and abroad, it better be called "redistribution of wealth", because we all know that this is what they want. I am working 12-15 hours a day so I can provide for my family the life I want them to have, and now the govt. wants to take almost half of my work to give it to somebody else? I already give to the poor, from the money I have left, why do you think it's ok for the govt. to take more in the name of the poor, when we know all the pork-bills there are?
I came from a socialist country, and you can read from history that socialism doesn't work.You cannot take from the rich to give it to the poor. Our economy is the best. Have the officials from every 3rd world country come here and learn how capitalism works, and let them implement it in their own country.
You know the saying: easy come, easy go. If everybody in any poor country is working hard to make their country a great one, I assure you, with time, they will succeed. If all we do is just handle them some $$, we all heard about the corruption is going around. I came from such country and I know!!
Before the end, a rhetorical question: why, with billions and billions of $$ spent for the poor since America was founded, are there still poor in this world? Maybe just money is nor enough?
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