[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 145 (Thursday, September 27, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2009]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       GLOBAL POVERTY ACT OF 2007

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                            HON. ADAM SMITH

                             of washington

                    in the house of representatives

                      Tuesday, September 25, 2007

  Mr. SMITH of Washington. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of Global 
Poverty Act and want to take a moment to explain the profound need for 
this important piece of legislation.
  Nearly 2.7 billion people in the world live on less than $2 a day. 
Close to a billion people live on less than $1 a day. Vast numbers of 
people wake up every morning wondering whether they or their children 
will live to see the end of the day. Poverty leads to widespread 
disease and instability, and in a world with such vast resources, its 
existence is absolutely immoral. And yet, the United States has not 
stated that reducing global poverty and eliminating extreme global 
poverty are among the foremost goals of our foreign policy, nor have we 
implemented a comprehensive plan to reach these goals.
  H.R. 1302 declares it official U.S. policy to promote the reduction 
of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the 
achievement of the U.N. Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme 
global poverty in half by 2015. This bill requires the President to 
develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to carry out this 
policy. It includes guidelines for what the strategy should include 
from aid, trade, and debt relief to working with the international 
community, businesses, and NGOs to insuring environmental 
sustainability. The bill also requires the President's strategy include 
specific and measurable goals, efforts to be undertaken, benchmarks, 
and timetables. Lastly it requires that the President report back to 
Congress biannually on the progress made in the implementation of the 
strategy.
  To be clear, Americans are working to address global poverty. The 
President implemented the Millennium Challenge Account to make sure 
countries don't just get foreign aid but use it wisely. Other 
significant steps forward include funding the PEPFAR effort and AIDS 
treatment and prevention in Africa. The United Nations set out the 
Millennium Development Goals and the G-8 set global poverty as its 
priority a couple years ago. Groups like the Gates Foundation, RESULTS 
and Bread for the World and a large number of other organizations 
combat global poverty from every conceivable angle. The world is coming 
together as it never has before to combat this menace, but in the U.S. 
no overarching strategy guides the allocation of resources.
  The United States of America should be not just a leader, but the 
leader in this effort. We are in a position, I believe, to consolidate 
those resources, to get the maximum return on our effort to relieve 
global poverty. This bill would bring much-needed strategic vision and 
accountability to our efforts to address what is arguably the greatest 
challenge facing the world community today.
  I want to thank a large number of people for bringing the Global 
Poverty Act to the floor. House Foreign Affairs Chairman Tom Lantos (D-
Calif.) has been a tremendous leader on these issues and has been very 
helpful in this particular piece of legislation, as has Ranking Member 
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) and the Republicans on the committee. This 
is a bipartisan effort. I especially want to thank Congressman Spencer 
Bachus (R-Ala.) who joined me as an original co-sponsor.
  It is very important that we adopt this legislation and help the U.S. 
take this leadership role. I believe if we do so we'll be better able 
to combat global poverty and be better able to build alliances 
throughout the world. This new policy will let the world know that the 
United States wants to use its power for the betterment of the entire 
world and that we want to work with the international community to 
solve the greatest crisis facing our world today.

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