Posted on 02/25/2008 3:52:46 AM PST by Man50D
Two conservative members of the U.S. Senate have anonymously placed a hold on Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) global poverty bill, Cybercast News Service has learned.
The effort is an attempt to slow down the progress of a bill (S. 2433) that conservative analysts say could eventually force the U.S. to increase its foreign aid by hundreds of billions of dollars.
Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media, a conservative media watchdog, said S. 2433 has been getting "a pass" from Congress. It received absolutely no scrutiny in the House last fall, when it was passed on a voice vote, and no scrutiny last week in the Senate, when the Foreign Relations Committee also passed it on a voice vote.
"They never held any hearings on this bill in either body - none whatsoever," said Kincaid. "They never heard from people like me, who monitor the U.N. for a living, about what was in it and what it means. You can be sure that people in the foreign aid lobby completely understand what's in it."
Officially, S. 2433 declares it to be U.S. policy to help reduce global poverty and eliminate extreme global poverty. It also commits the U.S. to achieving the United Nations' Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme global poverty in half by 2015 and directs the president to create a strategy to help reduce global poverty.
The legislation had been languishing in the Senate, but Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden (D-Del.) placed it on a fast-track in recent weeks as Obama's presidential campaign started heating up.
The Illinois Democrat praised Biden and the committee's ranking Republican, Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, for "moving so quickly." Obama is the chief Senate sponsor of the bill.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
Capitol Hill Is full of fools.
Might it not be better for it to play out in the Senate and then get vetoed by President Bush?
“...We need to embrace the challenge to dedicate a larger percentage of our GDP to foreign aid, while encouraging more international trade with developing countries. History will judge us not by what we say but what we do.
Yes, this agenda will require a role for government that some conservatives find disquieting. But that is a discomfort worth confronting.
Yes, it means that politicians like me have to start speaking some hard truths and making some bold decisions.
We are going to have to look at everything from pork, to entitlements, and be decisive about changing the role of government in our lives. That effort includes not only cutting old, tired programs, but also advancing new initiatives like the CARE Act, a bold package of expanded charitable-giving incentives that supports faith-based and community organizations....”---Rick Santorum
Delaying it may only serve to stall it until President Bush is out of office.
[It’s another method for Socialists for destroying U.S. sovereignty to impose their world order.]
The U.S. is already socialist and is but putting in the laws and changing the constitutional rights one by one. And conservatives can not or will not stop this ignorance no matter what does happen, it is beyond our power.
I love your tagline!!!
The house members who voted on it may not have known what it really meant, but the co-sponsors should have.
It appears that of 81 co-sponsors only one was Republican. I guess that's good, though that number should have been zero.
If it is anonymous, how do they know they are conservative? How do they know this hold is not a Clinton action? Shoddy reporting.
Time to man the phone lines again. Don’t we give enough? I have had it and this is just the kind of thing we could expect from an Obama led Congress. Sickening.
CNS reports this in its lead line, then drops it entirely with no explanation. What kind of reporting is that? Conservatives can "anonymously place a hold" on bills in the Democrat-controlled senate, how? Do they wear masks? Hack into computers?
Harry Reid just shows up to work one day to discover the act, scratches his head, wondering who could have done this...
It's just all so perplexing.
I agree, very shoddy reporting. Reading the article for a clue as to what went down offers absolutely nothing except a rehash of the bill's content and quotes from members of the House, not the senate. It doesn't even make any sense.
“Officially, S. 2433 declares it to be U.S. policy to help reduce global poverty and eliminate extreme global poverty. It also commits the U.S. to achieving the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme global poverty in half by 2015 and directs the president to create a strategy to help reduce global poverty.”
The legislative shenanigans surrounding this piece of tripe is consistent with the lying, cowardly DhimmiLib agenda...abrogate US Sovereignty in favor of the prospective global government of the UN, and then force the American taxpayers to fund the damn thing, without any representation.
This must be stopped. The UN needs to get out of the US, and the US needs to get out of the UN.
This POS is deserving of the same level of contempt and activism as the shamnesty propsals of last year and since. Let your congress critters know where you stand on global government and unrepresented taxation of the American people...
Don't blame Luger. Obama is one smart cookie and is using republicans (plural) words against them...
S. 2433Some people (like Dubya, Rice and the Administration) don't know when to shut up. And how can he Veto this when his OWN WORDS are used? Answer, He can't.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATESSEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress makes the following findings:
(5) On March 22, 2002, President George W. Bush stated: `We fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror. We fight against poverty because opportunity is a fundamental right to human dignity. We fight against poverty because faith requires it and conscience demands it. We fight against poverty with a growing conviction that major progress is within our reach.'.(6) The 2002 National Security Strategy of the United States notes: `[A] world where some live in comfort and plenty, while half of the human race lives on less than $2 per day, is neither just nor stable. Including all of the world's poor in an expanding circle of development and opportunity is a moral imperative and one of the top priorities of U.S. international policy.'.
(7) The 2006 National Security Strategy of the United States notes: `America's national interests and moral values drive us in the same direction: to assist the world's poor citizens and least developed nations and help integrate them into the global economy.'.
(9) At the summit of the Group of Eight (G-8) nations in July 2005, leaders from all eight participating countries committed to increase aid to Africa from the current $25,000,000,000 annually to $50,000,000,000 by 2010, and to cancel 100 percent of the debt obligations owed to the World Bank, African Development Bank, and International Monetary Fund by 18 of the world's poorest nations.
(10) At the United Nations World Summit in September 2005, the United States joined more than 180 other governments in reiterating their commitment to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
(11) The United States has recognized the need for increased financial and technical assistance to countries burdened by extreme poverty, as well as the need for strengthened economic and trade opportunities for those countries, through significant initiatives in recent years, including the Millennium Challenge Act of 2003 (22 U.S.C. 7701 et seq.), the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act of 2003 (22 U.S.C. 7601 et seq.), the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative, and trade preference programs for developing countries, such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (19 U.S.C. 3701 et seq.).
(12) In January 2006, United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice initiated a restructuring of the United States foreign assistance program, including the creation of a Director of Foreign Assistance, who maintains authority over Department of State and United States Agency for International Development (USAID) foreign assistance funding and programs.
(13) In January 2007, the Department of State's Office of the Director of Foreign Assistance added poverty reduction as an explicit, central component of the overall goal of United States foreign assistance. The official goal of United States foreign assistance is: `To help build and sustain democratic, well-governed states that respond to the needs of their people, reduce widespread poverty and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system.'.
Thanks again Mr Compassionate conservative.
Has McCain said anything about this? Watch this go in by one vote, while an AZ senator is out campaigning.
“Might it not be better for it to play out in the Senate and then get vetoed by President Bush?”
What leads you to believe Bush would veto it?
Oh well, enter S 2433 into Thomas, the Bill will pop right up.
Nothing that I heard.
Latest Major Action: 2/13/2008 Senate committee/subcommittee actions. Status: Committee on Foreign Relations. Ordered to be reported with amendments favorably.
Without the current 'Hold' this abomination would have hit the floor for a vote. Likely a voice vote so no one is on record.
Sessions and DeMint?
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