Global poverty act

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The Global Poverty Act is a bill currently in the U.S. Congress. The bill was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives by Congressman Adam Smith.

The bill would require the U.S. 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 United Nations 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.

Several key organizations have been lobbying for the Global Poverty Act, including the National Wildlife Federation, The Borgen Project, RESULTS, CARE and BREAD. The bill passed the Foreign Affairs Committee in July.

[edit] Media Coverage

A number of news outlets have made false reports about this bill and called it Global Poverty Tax. In February 2008, Cliff Kincaid of Accuracy in Media wrote that the Global Poverty Act (S.2433) "would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of gross national product on foreign aid." ^[1] This is not in the bill; the bill does not require any minimum foreign aid spending. The only requirement of the bill is that the President create a plan to address global poverty and it goes on to suggest what areas the plan will cover.^[2] Other outlets ran a similar story including WorldNetDaily^[3] which cites Kincaid as a source.

[edit] External links

• Read the bill
• View Cosponsors