War on Global Poverty Should Be Fixed, Not Ended: Gene Sperling

[papau]

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&cid=sperling&sid=a9IvulI8fn0w

War on Global Poverty Should Be Fixed, Not Ended:
Gene Sperling

Oct. 20 (Bloomberg) -- Amid the turmoil swirling around the administration of President George W. Bush, there is one positive Bush legacy Democrats ought to recognize: the increase in bipartisan support for U.S. aid to fight AIDS and global poverty.

For most of the 1990s, the Republican leadership was either cool to foreign assistance or bent on cutting it. After seizing control of Congress in 1994, the Republican majority won a 10 percent reduction in foreign aid. During this period, Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Jesse Helms referred to aid as ``money down a rat hole,'' while as late as 2000, former House Majority leader Tom DeLay accused Democrats who voted for aid of ``putting Ghana over Grandma?''

The year 2000 was a turning point. The Reverend Pat Robertson and Republican members of Congress such as Spencer Bachus and John Kasich -- buoyed by the multi-denominational ``Jubilee 2000'' grassroots movement dedicated to canceling the debt of developing nations -- joined with President Bill Clinton and key Democrats to secure congressional support for a G8 plan to provide tens of billions of dollars of debt relief to the world's poorest nations.

Although this was an important victory, the fact that it took a full-court press to overcome intense congressional resistance was discouraging, particularly given how much more the U.S. still needs to contribute to the global war on poverty. <snip>