Friday, September 05, 2008

democrats v. republicans ... global poverty

Global Poverty

Democrats: The United States has a direct national security interest in dramatically reducing global poverty and joining with our allies in sharing more of our riches to help those most in need. It is time to make the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, which aim to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015, America's goals as well. …

We will double our annual investment in meeting these challenges to $50 billion by 2012 and ensure that those new resources are directed toward worthwhile goals. But if America is going to help others build more just and secure societies, our trade deals, debt relief, and foreign aid must not come as blank checks. We will couple our support with an insistent call for reform, to combat the corruption that rots societies and governments from within. As part of this new funding, we will create a $2 billion Global Education Fund that will bring the world together in eliminating the global education deficit with the goal of supporting a free, quality basic education for every child in the world. Education increases incomes, reduces poverty, strengthens communities, prevents the spread of disease, improves child and maternal health and empowers women and girls.

The Democrats also emphasize poverty at home: One in eight Americans live in poverty today. Nearly 13 million of the poor are children. We can't allow this kind of suffering and hopelessness to exist in our country. It's not who we are.

Working together, we can cut poverty in half within ten years. We will provide all our children a world-class education, from early childhood through college. We will develop innovative transitional job programs that place unemployed people into temporary jobs and train them for permanent ones. To help workers share in our country's productivity, we'll expand the Earned Income Tax Credit, and raise the minimum wage and index it to inflation. The majority of adults in poverty are women, and to combat poverty we must work for fair pay, support for mothers, and policies that promote responsible fatherhood. We'll start letting our unions do what they do best again--organize and lift up our workers. We'll make sure that every American has affordable health care that stays with you no matter what happens. We will assist American Indian communities, since 10 of the 20 poorest counties in the U.S. are on Indian lands. We'll bring businesses back to our inner-cities, increase the supply of affordable housing, and establish 'promise neighborhoods' that provide comprehensive services in areas of concentrated poverty.

Republicans: No nation spends more in combined public and private efforts to combat disease and poverty around the world, and no nation works harder to ensure the continued vitality of the global economy. Our reasons for doing so are both moral and practical, for a world where half of the human race lives on a few dollars a day is neither just nor stable. Including the world's poor in an expanding circle of development is part and parcel of the Republican approach to world trade through open markets and fair competition. It must also be a top priority of our foreign policy. Decades of massive aid have failed to spur economic growth in the poorest countries, where it has often propped up failed policies and corrupt rulers. We will target foreign assistance to high-impact goals: fostering the rule of law through democratic government, emphasizing literacy and learning, and concentrating on the foundations for economic development: clean water, agricultural improvement, and microcredit funding for small enterprises.

The Republican platform doesn't directly address poverty in the U.S., but includes promises of tax cuts for families and for lower-income earners, and as well as creating more jobs and helping struggling homeowners.

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