A reparable wrong

Senator and presidential aspirant Barack Obama has sponsored the aptly-titled "Global Poverty Act of 2007." The title is apt because the bill is sure to make Americans on the whole poorer and is likely to affect poverty worldwide not very much. (Why, given his misguided notions, did the Senator not name the bill "The Global Poverty Reduction Act"? That would have been a misnomer but, I suspect, it also would have been better marketing.)

The bill is getting unqualified bad press from some conservative organizations, such as the Family Research Council, which is unfortunate for two reasons. First, it's never a good idea to confirm the mistaken stereotype that we conservatives don't care about the poor. In fact, recent studies have demonstrated that conservatives are much more generous to the poor and downtrodden that are liberals.

Second, the bill isn't all bad. I defer to FRC's assertion that the bill will cost American taxpayers an additional $845 billion. That part is bad. By taking money out of the hands of Americans, the most generous people on the planet, and putting it into the hands of US and UN bureaucrats, the bill would ensure that every person on Earth who is not a bureaucrat is poorer.

But the bill has some redeeming qualities. Section 4(c)(4) would require the US to reduce poverty by "Leveraging United States trade policy where possible to enhance economic development prospects for developing countries." Putting free market principles to work in our trade policy in order to help poor nations develop is a conservative and laudable practice. We're for this.

Section 4(c)(6) would require the US to "Mobiliz[e] and leverag[e] the participation of businesses, United States and international nongovernmental organizations, civil society, and public-private partnerships." Privatized poverty solutions: we're in favor of this, too.

The bill is a mitigated disaster. Rather than make easy negative headlines for the liberal media -- "Conservative Evangelicals Oppose Measure to Assist the Poor!!!" -- let's work to fix the bill before it gets out of the Senate.