President Elect Obama has made important promises to hungry
and poor people in this country and around the world. He has promised to end child hunger in this
country by 2015 and cut poverty in half within a decade.
He has also promised to reform and increase U.S. foreign assistance in
order to help meet the international goal of cutting world hunger and poverty
in half by 2015.
Many interest groups are now jostling for government help as
they cope with the economic crisis. But
in fact, poor people are hardest hit by the crisis, and helping them weather
the storm and work their way out of poverty can contribute to the health of the
entire economy.
Meetings with the transition team have made me hopeful that
the Obama administration will be faithful to his promises to poor people. The middle-class task force led by Vice
President Elect Biden is charged with protecting vulnerable people and helping
them get into the middle class as well as protecting people who are already in
the middle class.
It’s crucial that the Obama stimulus package
disproportionately benefit low-income people.
In deciding which investments to include in the package, the
administration and Congress should ask which investments will create jobs and
benefits for low-income people.
The stimulus package should definitely include food
assistance for the growing ranks of hungry people—food stamps, WIC benefits, and
help for food banks. As unemployment has
gone up, demands on food banks have surged by as much as 40 percent.
Food assistance will allow struggling families to feed their
children and immediately stimulate the economy.
Every dollar invested in food stamps translates into $1.73 in additional
economic activity. Minimizing hunger
among children is also one of the most powerful investments in education and
health the administration can make.
The stimulus package should also include help for hungry and
poor people in developing countries.
Economic turbulence that started in the United States is causing great
hardship among many poor people around the world. Helping them cope makes sense for moral and
national security reasons, and the recovery of fast-growing developing
economies will be a source of dynamism for the entire global economy.
Looking beyond the stimulus package, Congress is scheduled
to reauthorize the child nutrition programs in 2009—WIC, school meals, and
summer feeding. This could be an early, uncomplicated win for Obama, and it
would be popular with voters across the political spectrum. The administration’s budget should allow for
increased spending of $20 billion on child nutrition over the next five years.
President Bush increased funding for programs that are now
helping to reduce hunger, poverty, and disease among people in developing
countries. I was in Mozambique last week
and saw the positive impact of U.S. assistance even in poor, remote villages—schools
we helped build and people living with AIDS thanks to medication our country
provided. Obama should continue to increase funding for international
development, notably nutrition and agricultural development assistance.
Our new president and Congress also have an opportunity for
broad reform of foreign assistance in 2009.
Bread for the World members and churches across the country will be
campaigning on this issue. Obama can
deliver more real help with our foreign aid dollars by working with Congress to
make foreign assistance more effective and to focus more of the aid
single-mindedly on development and poverty reduction.
Finally, the Obama administration could do a lot of good for
the global economy, and especially for poor people, by concluding the Doha
round of multilateral trade negotiations.
This is a trade deal that would be socially progressive, especially if
it is combined with increased public investment in education, health, and rural
development in this country.
Those of us who are especially concerned about hunger and
poverty – the kind of people who read the Spotlight
web site – need to provide active support for the elements in the Obama agenda
that are important to hungry and poor people.
Obama is clear that political leaders, by themselves, cannot achieve the
change he has promised. People of faith
and conscience will need to campaign around Obama’s anti-poverty promises to
make sure they don’t get pushed aside in the crush of economic problems and
interest-group politics.
David Beckmann is the
president of Bread for the World, a collective Christian voice urging our
nation’s decision makers to end hunger and poverty in the United States and
around the world. For more information, visit www.bread.org.