Posted on 06/20/2002 5:29:42 PM PDT by niki
Bush to Propose Another $100 Million Over Five Years for Education in Africa
By Jennifer Loven Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Ahead of a summit of industrialized nations intended to focus on the plight of sub-Saharan Africa, President Bush says America should spend $20 million more a year on education there and will visit the continent next year.
Though the proposed spending boost would double the government's investment on an education initiative in Africa, the $200 million total was deemed modest by critics.
The World Bank has estimated that wealthy donor countries will need to commit between $3 billion and $4 billion annually in additional foreign aid over the next 10 years to achieve the goal of universal primary education in the developing world by the year 2015. Estimates of the number of children in poor nations who have never attended school range as high as 125 million, about two-thirds of them girls.
Gene Sperling, former President Clinton's chief White House economic adviser and now head of the Center for Universal Education at the Council on Foreign Relations, said 75 million of the children out of school worldwide are in Africa.
"The Bush announcement proposes spending $20 million more each year for education in all of Africa, which is the cost of building just one large high school in the United States," Sperling said. "This proposal is very disappointing."
A bipartisan group of congressmen urged Bush, in a letter sent Thursday, to raise U.S. spending on basic education around the world to $1 billion by 2006.
The president planned to announce his travel plans and the new spending initiative Thursday night at a dinner in memory of the Rev. Leon Sullivan, a Philadelphia minister credited with helping end apartheid in South Africa, White House officials said.
On Wednesday, the president promised an extra $500 million over three years to help prevent mothers in parts of African and the Caribbean from transmitting the AIDS virus to their children.
Africa will be a major focus of the Group of Eight meeting that Bush attends next week in Canada.
The White House hopes the new African initiative will ease criticism about U.S. spending on developing nations and projecting a compassionate image of Bush to both foreign leaders and American voters. The $10 billion U.S. foreign aid budget is the lowest among rich nations as a percentage of economic output.
Rock star Bono and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill toured Africa last month after the singer persuaded the U.S. official to see for himself the importance of debt relief, fair trade and effective aid. O'Neill says the United States is committed to helping Africa, but that aid money should produce measurable results.
The proposed new spending will train more than 420,000 new teachers in Africa, provide more than 250,000 scholarships for girls, and, with help from historically black colleges in America, provide 4 1/2 million more textbooks for children in Africa, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.
The president's trip to Africa next year will focus on the benefits of a law that reduces trade barriers to African nations that have market-based economies and policies on reducing poverty, fighting corruption, protecting workers' rights and fostering human rights, Fleischer said.
Oh, that is good....ROFL..
He's got you there, KB.
You should have said, "Go away and don't come back until you have an informed, coherent position."
No it's not. It's a social democracy. And a bankrupt one at that.
If foreign aid is un constitutional, why has there never been a court's ruling confirming that?
I'd surely love to know who these bastids are....hopefully Senators Kennedy, Corzine, and Cantwell, and Fitzpatrick, and Clinton are among them. Just think....if these friggin millionaires got together with the one in the White House, they could come up with the 'chump' change to cover the $20 million. I bet the Emperor King President even has a number of cabinet caddies that would chip in!
Sperling unwittingly debunks his own case.
Heck, just moments ago I made some sorta peace w/ a pro-Bush fella.
Might just be me, but tax $ for education in Africa falls squarely under the rubric of "government largesse".
FWIW, I am against capitulation to extortion, i.e. "Either you help us out, or pay the long-term consequences".
"The Bush announcement proposes spending $20 million more each year for education in all of Africa, which is the cost of building just one large high school in the United States," Sperling said. "This proposal is very disappointing." "...
Bless this little commie bastid's compassionate heart. It's just simply NEVER ENOUGH for these socialists.
And to think....yet another member of the Council of Foreign Relations....that benign organization that has an extraordinarily high % of members filtered through fedgov making policy but they're only concerned with the best interests of Amerika.
A few months ago, I would have said you were crazy for that last statement. Now, you may very well be correct.
If foreign aid is un constitutional, why has there never been a court's ruling confirming that?
Let me explain...
One of the big reasons we have a written Constitution is because under the British Crown, we didn't. The Constitution was written to be understood by the reasonably literate layman. It was never the intent of the Founders to have the Acolytes of Lawyerdom gleaning sheep entrails for hidden meanings in the Constitution.
But that seems to be the way it's gone, hasn't it. Today, we had the Supreme Court rule that mentally retarded murderers can't be executed, overturning their own ruling from thirteen years ago, citing "evolving standards of decency" or some such unconstitutional nonsense. The Judiciary is just one of three increasingly corrupt branches of the federal government, and like the other two, ever hungry for power.
So you go read the Constitution, and tell me where the it empowers the President to give away hundreds millions of dollars to Africa.
Saber, you are quotable. But infuse buck-naked facts at your risk.
Your page is splendid.
Why? To what end?
I'm serious. Look at the nonsense at the top of this thread.
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