With the 2012 election over, the lame-duck Congress is diving back into its unfinished business. First on their to-do list: funding the federal government for next year, including America’s efforts to fight global poverty and save lives. Will Congress protect life-saving aid? Or will Congress duck fiscal reality and common sense as they waddle through the budget gridlock?

Aid to fight poverty and help out in disasters is one of America’s proudest traditions—and smartest investments. For decades, American aid has helped people escape poverty and survive war and hunger.  US aid has helped end polio, fuel the Green Revolution, and rebuild shattered economies. It has also helped build some of America’s strongest allies, like Turkey, South Korea, and Poland. When you look at that record, and then consider the cost—less than one percent of the federal budget—your elected representatives in Washington would have to be quackers to vote to cut aid.

And yet aid, despite this legacy of success, global poverty assistance always seems to end up the ugly duckling of the federal budget. Perhaps it is because aid has a complicated story to tell. Of course aid doesn’t lift people or countries out of poverty—people do that themselves.

People like Cyiza Eliab in Rwanda who started a farm cooperative with his neighbors to grow corn and beans to help feed their families and earn an income. With a little help for USAID’s Feed the Future program, Cyiza‘s cooperative built a storage shed where corn is hung to dry, which reduced rot and increased profits.  With the additional income, Cyiza can educate his children and brighten their futures.

Or Kim Nay Heang, a 57-year-old entrepreneur from Cambodia who got USAID support to transform her household fishpond into a profitable business venture. With this income, Heang helped her family survive a dramatic spike in food prices—and provided an education for her five grandchildren.

Or Jose Ordoñez, a Honduran corn farmer who started to plant more profitable crops, like papaya, and is now able to transport the fruits to a market where they fetch a good price, travelling on rural roads constructed using U.S. assistance. He is now earning enough to secure his family’s future.

Farmers, entrepreneurs, nurses, teachers, watchdogs who call out corruption and abuse—these are America’s partners in the fight against global poverty. For decades, assistance from the US government has been there to help. Sure, we don’t always do it as well as we could. But when it pays off, we get a world that is better, safer, and more prosperous for everyone.

But telling how aid works is hard; holding up the example of money going to shiftless foreigners is easy. No wonder some politicians try to feather their own nests by saying aid is a waste. You can expect a flock of critics to peck holes in the foreign aid budget over the next few weeks. But don’t fall for it. Don’t let them wash poor people—or America’s values and interests—down the drain. Stand up and protect America’s poverty-fighting and life-saving aid.

Everybody loves to pick on foreign aid. After all, unlike oil companies or defense contractors, poor people in developing countries don’t have high powered lobbyists making their case. But for that very reason, foreign aid offers some pretty slim pickings for budget cutters.

Last week, the Chair of the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan, unveiled his budget for Fiscal Year 2013. Ryan’s budget cuts less from foreign aid than last years’ budget; in fact, the Ryan budget plan wouldn’t even balance the budget until after 2040. Yet it would still cut 15% from what the Obama administration said is needed to meet foreign affairs needs.

Many of these cuts would come from long-term investments in fighting poverty—the kinds of investments America needs to make now if we want to help countries solve their own problems and save us money down the road. Not only that, but these sorts of cuts pull the rug out from under people who want to work with the United States as partners to solve problems we care about, like poverty, violence, hunger, disease, and corruption.

But even more damning than the penny-wise and pound-foolish nature of the cuts is the fact that they barely put a ding in the budget deficit. Check out the chart below: it shows that Ryan’s foreign affairs cuts would reduce the budget deficit by exactly 0.2%. In fact, if Congress eliminated the entire foreign affairs budget, they would have to do it more than thirty-two times in order to get anywhere near tacking the deficit. As Dr. Mike Tierney of The College of William & Mary says, “Cutting foreign aid to address the budget crisis is like getting your hair cut in an effort to lose weight.”

Small potatoes for Washington deficit math—yet devastating for poor people in the field who are grappling with poverty and injustice. Oxfam doesn’t take US government money, but we want the money US government invest in fighting poverty to do the most good. But the cuts Ryan proposes undermine those very programs designed to help poor people help themselves. How ironic that the advocate of the “opportunity society” has written a budget that focuses our small investments on feeding programs rather than investments to fight poverty.

But Ryan has already had trouble getting this budget even out of his committee; chances are, it’s going to be hard to get Members of Congress to endorse a budget blueprint that hurts poor people, hurts American interests, and doesn’t balance the budget until 2040. Ask your Representative to oppose these cuts and ensure that we balance our budget, our values, and our interest in helping make the world safer, fairer and less poor.

Seems like all anyone is talking about these days is jobs. Do we spend to create them, or do we cut taxes so that others can? Well, the good news is that there is at least one bill out there that could create thousands of jobs in the Gulf Coast, particularly in coastal communities that were hit hard by the BP oil spill, and not spend one additional dollar of tax payer monies. The RESTORE Act (pdf), introduced by Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) and Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) and co-sponsored by several Senators in the Gulf delegation, is a truly bi-partisan bill. It would send 80% of fines from the oil spill, as much as $21 billion, back to the Gulf for coastal restoration projects and that would also help to bring back the economies and communities that were most impacted by the spill. On Wednesday, a companion bill was introduced by Rep. Steve Scalise and a group of Republican and Democratic members in the Gulf.

The RESTORE Act could be used for wetland reconstruction, rebuilding depleted oyster beds, and building barrier islands. These natural resources are not only vital to protecting coastal communities in the face of the next Katrina-like storm but will allow these communities to be more economically resilient as well. The Gulf region is home to a $23 billion fishing industry—fisher families depend on the Gulf’s natural resources in supporting their families.

Walking through New Orleans, the impact of the Gulf’s natural resources is everywhere–restaurants advertising their local seafood dishes, or tourist operators luring visitors to take a boat ride through the Bayou. In Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, beach-lovers bring much needed dollars to hotels. The oil spill created havoc for small businessmen across the region; the RESTORE Act brings back the dollars to the communities that suffered the biggest environmental disaster our country has seen.

As Oxfam’s report, Beyond Recovery outlined, the best part, though, is that these projects will accelerate the growth of a new industry across the Gulf Coast, employing thousands through companies like Weeks Marine, The Shaw Group, Atkins, and the Louisiana firm, Royal Engineering, which has seen its company size triple as a result of projects like those that the RESTORE Act could fund. These engineering and dredging companies will hire workers at all skill levels for these projects including engineers and scientists, but also welders, boat and heavy equipment operators, and deck hands to name a few. This is an opportunity to have real impact for working families along the coast by providing a real pathway to long term good paying jobs, all the while making their communities safer when the next storm hits.

The RESTORE Act has it all: job creation with no added cost to tax payers. Congress should be all over that one.

Today, ordinary citizens from all over our nation who care about helping the poorest of the poor around the world are jamming the phone lines (we hope) as they call their Members of Congress to demand that they not cut the deficit on the backs of the world’s poor.

Whether or not you think Congress should be jammed (or dammed given the unprecedented lack of civility and compromise we are witnessing), we are together working to make sure our message gets through and is heard.

There are Members of Congress, Democrats and Republicans who understand the benefits and care deeply about foreign assistance–but we are up against our biggest challenge ever in midst of the “most cynical and schizophrenic of times” (as pointed out by retiring Republican staffer Mike Lofgren).

Our friends need to know their constituents care, and Members who profess not to care need to be made to understand why they should. It is all part of a sustained coordinated effort at many levels of advocacy: grassroots, grass tops, media, and in-person visits to Congressional offices here in Washington DC and in-district.

• Our national call-in day is a joint effort with CARE, Results, ONE, Bread for the World, and Save the Children. It comes at a critical time with a message that is fully supported by a coalition of 129 organizations focused on working to ensure that foreign assistance is not cut.

• Oxfam Sisters on the Planet Ambassadors have also been front and center. They joined other women leaders from around the country with their full page ad in Politico and direct advocacy activities.

Our message is simple and we are carrying it to Congress in every way we can: Support the 1% that saves lives. Please protect life-saving, anti-poverty programs from cuts in FY12 and beyond.

Many lives depend on these programs that give the world’s poorest people the tools they need to help lift themselves out of hunger and poverty. With high food prices and extreme weather events threatening millions around the world, now is not the time to cut life-saving assistance–which makes up less than 1% of the US budget. These strategic investments help make a safer world today and avert costlier interventions and humanitarian emergencies tomorrow.

My deep thanks to every single person who bothers to pick up the phone and make one–or hopefully two or three phone calls today to your Members of Congress. Together we can save lives and help people lift themselves out of poverty.

Senator Rand Paul takes pride in his 17 year membership of Lions Club International–an organization dedicated to “preserving sight by providing eyeglasses and surgery to the less fortunate around the world”, but yesterday his eyesight was way off.  His amendment to strike $6.9 billion from the State Department and USAID in order to fund FEMA disaster relief programs was not only short sighted–it was an idea that had no sight or vision of any kind.

Senator Kerry was as clear as a bell when he said: “This amendment would be absolutely devastating to our foreign aid and development programs. It would decimate agencies that have already taken huge funding cuts in fiscal year 2011, and it would completely undermine core national security priorities and humanitarian commitments.”

Senator Graham spoke up, too: “The foreign operations account is national security in another form. If you just do not always want to bomb people, you need to help people help themselves, and the money in this account will allow people to stand up against terrorism and do things America has been doing for a long time; that is, helping people who really would be better off for the experience and have a kindness toward us.”

The good news is that there are Members of Congress–liberals, moderates, and fiscal conservatives alike, who have deep knowledge and understanding of why it is important to protect life-saving anti-poverty programs from cuts in FY12 and beyond.

Many lives depend on these programs that give the world’s poorest people the tools they need to help lift themselves out of hunger and poverty.  With high food prices and extreme weather events threatening millions around the world, now is not the time to cut life-saving assistance–which makes up less than 1% of the US budget.  These strategic investments help make a safer world today and avert costlier interventions and humanitarian emergencies tomorrow.

With all due respect, perhaps it is time for Senator Paul to let Lion’s Club International do some work on his eyesight and vision.

During the waning days of summer, news items that don’t achieve Category 1 hurricane status tend to fall through the cracks. This one is worth a second look as it provides a glimmer of hope to those of us who fear climate change has become an entirely partisan issue.

Last week, Senators Stabenow (D-MI) and Roberts (R-KS), Chairwoman and Ranking Member of the Senate Agriculture Committee, toured south-central Kansas, a region heavily dependent on agriculture that’s been devastated by this year’s historic drought. They were in the area to conduct one of two agriculture hearings (the first one was held in Michigan in May) to discuss the reauthorization of the Farm Bill. It was also the last opportunity for the Senators to formally engage constituents prior to making recommendations to the “super-committee” for budget cuts to agricultural programs, something that Committees in both Houses must do in compliance with the debt-ceiling deal.

A journalist who covers agricultural issues for DTN/Progressive Farmer blogged about the hearing, which covered topics like the incessant drought in the southwest, food security issues, river flooding, and was compelled to ask the Senators what the Committee is doing in regards to climate change and the ability for the region to produce food in the future. Here’s just part of Sen. Roberts’ response:

“As I’ve indicated, you have 11 different agencies working on the drought, obviously we’re going through a period where we are experiencing global warming,” Roberts said. “I went to Antarctica some years ago. I looked at the ice rings. It was obvious to me that we had global warming. I came back and I tried to let agriculture know let’s not get into the debate is there global warming or is there not global warming. Let’s be part of the answer.”

Senator Roberts isn’t the only Republican acknowledging the science of climate change. In a tweet a few weeks ago, Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman made the claim that he “trust[s] scientists on global warming.” And he even went a step further, telling ABC’s Jake Tapper that his opponents’ opposition to the idea of climate change is extremist. Paul Krugman’s recent piece in the Times highlights Huntsman for willing to stand out on this issue.

As we head into what will likely be a tumultuous fall in Washington, with negotiations over the debt deal coming to a head, unemployment rates hovering at record levels, and the 2013 Presidential election season gaining speed, it’s important to remember that climate change is not just a myth to even-handed Republicans. If we continue to identify solutions that save money in the long run, we may still make progress on one of the defining issues of our generation.

These are heartless times. Issues that should never be partisan, like helping the poorest of the poor survive, are falling to the wayside in the name of ensuring the top 1% of our wealthiest get to keep their disproportionately large tax cuts.

It is extraordinary to see how far we seem to have come down the road of self-interest. We know that there are many members of Congress, on both sides of the aisle, who understand and care about serving the long-term interests of the United States by tackling global poverty. Unfortunately, their voices are not being heard. Today, we witnessed the passage of a House Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations bill that eliminates even the relatively miniscule amounts of funding for such programs in the name of cutting our deficit. But this only puts many of our most vulnerable global citizens – women and children – at further risk.

A 12% cut to humanitarian aid, an 18% cut to Feed the Future and Development Assistance Programs, a 27% cut to USAID operations … the list goes on.

Perhaps the Subcommittee forgot that the entire international affairs budget, which covers both diplomacy and foreign aid, is only about 1% of the federal budget. And only half of that is spent on poverty-focused foreign aid. Last year alone, Americans spent as much on candy and even more on caring for their pets as the US government spent on helping poor people. Yet all we hear is that “wasteful spending” must be cut.

But cutting so called “wasteful spending” will be hurting our own interests as well as the poor and hungry.

For example, cuts to President Bush’s Millennium Challenge Corporation will severely hamper this unique and successful program. Its long-term approach and its focus on what actually helps countries emerge from poverty is key. It drives economic growth by addressing the root causes of past development failures, by listening to the legitimate solutions of stable governments rather than imposing them from afar, and by making long-term investments in institutions, all of which are conditional on key policy reforms, such as transparency, accountability, and getting results. What it isn’t is rewards to corrupt allies for being nice to us.

Zeroing out funding for climate change adaptation is another example that makes no sense and is clearly politics over substance. Such cuts hurt the poorest who must adapt to the dramatic and unexpected weather patterns that are devastating their crops and diminishing their ability to put food on the table. Think about the fact that 80% of the population of Ethiopia depends on agriculture for their livelihoods. And the dramatic hunger hitting Somalia and the Horn of Africa is partly due to record setting droughts. Influential national security voices have time and time again pointed out the risks of global food insecurity and inaction on agricultural climate change adaptation, but they are being flatly ignored.

As the bill moves forward, Congress should switch to coffee and wake up to the realities and consequences of too much tea-drinking. They say that all is fair in love and war. Not so. Let’s battle our deficit in ways we can look back on and feel good about. Show a little love and respect for the world’s poor and don’t cut critical foreign assistance.

I’ve been thinking about the Farm Bill recently. The legislation will expire in 2012, so Congress will probably try to pass a new bill next year. So, this is a good time to start thinking about it.

I like this idea of turning the Farm Bill into a Healthy Food Bill. Also, here, and here.

If I close my eyes, I can imagine something beautiful and important; something that would encourage kids to eat healthy; that would support small diversified farms and rural communities in this country, and that wouldn’t hurt people in developing countries.

But it’s safer to approach the Farm Bill with your eyes open.

Whatever else the Farm Bill is about–or could be about–it’s certainly about money. Taxpayer dollars. And the legislative debate, at its heart, is usually about the pie: how big is it and how does it get sliced up?

If you want a seat at the table in the Farm Bill, you need a wedge of that pie.

For the last Farm Bill, Oxfam joined a coalition that wasn’t about growing a wedge of the pie (a preoccupation for most of the interests who engage in lobbying of the farm bill). Our interest was actually about shrinking the “commodities” wedge. If you want more background, see here, and here, and here.

We didn’t really succeed in our goal. Or maybe we did. Because the “commodities” wedge of Farm Bill has been shrinking for decades and this shrinkage continues today (as a proportion of the Farm Bill). For a historical perspective see the graph below.

The large bulk of the Farm Bill is actually “nutrition” programs, i.e. food stamps. This wedge has grown and grown over the years. Recent growth has been driven by the sad reality that a lot more people need food assistance in this country due to high food prices and the poor economy. These days, everything else is small by comparison.

In Farm Bill politics, the commodities interests are in the driver’s seat. If you look at the House and Senate Agriculture Committees (which write the Farm Bill), there’s distinctly an agricultural profile. But the commodities interests have been under pressure to give more and more of the pie to conservation and food stamps. This is how they build the votes necessary to pass a Farm Bill and keep the commodities programs running.

But the current budget crisis may change the political calculus. The pie is shrinking fast and by the time Congress takes up the Farm Bill next year, tens of billions of dollars may be cut out of the pie to reduce the deficit. So will those cuts be spread evenly across the wedges? Will the pro-Farm Bill interests start trying to eat each other’s slice? Is this a moment when a more rational, transformative vision can take hold and win the day?

If I close my eyes….

For more, see:

Eight budget cuts that would help poor people

Last week, I wrote about the flurry of deadly extreme weather events happening in the US lately and the serious impact such events are having on socially vulnerable communities, especially in the southeastern states. It just so happens that in addition to all of these storms, floods, and droughts, hurricane season officially kicked-off on Wednesday (June 1) with predictions that this will be an above average year for hurricane activity. No rest for the weary, as they say.

But while families across the country are coping with such devastation, the Republican leadership in the House just delivered a one-two punch, by tying the hands of federal officials in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) working to prepare for increasingly extreme weather.

On Thursday, the House approved the fiscal 2012 DHS spending bill that included an amendment, introduced by Rep. John Carter (R-TX), prohibiting DHS from engaging in some of the very activities that will help to protect families from future disasters. The provision will prevent DHS from participating in a coordination process with other federal agencies working to prepare our country for the increase in extreme weather disasters that a changing climate is already bringing. DHS wouldn’t be allowed to participate in the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force that I wrote about several months ago when Senator Barrasso inaccurately characterized its mission.

Do we really want to tie the hands of the federal agency tasked with keeping our nation safe from disasters? What is more important to voters, the politics of climate change or the safety of our families? Basic preparation for disasters is the best and most cost effective way to keep Americans safe from harm and prevent the most costly impacts on our communities and our federal budget.

Thankfully, the Senate can stop this posturing that endangers American lives. It should reject any similar amendments, and when the House and Senate convene in a conference committee to reconcile their DHS appropriations bills, the Senate should stand firm and refuse to accept this language.

It’s a measure of how difficult things have gotten in Washington that cutting farm subsidies is now seen as something relatively easy that both Democrats and Republicans can agree on. Last week, the Washington Post reported that Republicans offered up farm subsidies as a ripe target for budget cutting.

It wasn’t so long ago that farm subsidies were considered invincible and the “iron triangle” of farm organizations, farm state legislators, and the behemoth US Agriculture Department had the situation on lock down.

Oxfam and a coalition of other disgruntled interests and pie-eyed idealists made case for reform of the Farm Bill in 2007. We rallied around an alternative proposal that would have cut commodity subsidies and shifted funds to other purposes, including reducing the federal debt. It was a great lobby effort, an innovative campaign, a reasonable objective, and quite unsuccessful. In the House, we lost on a vote of 309 to 117.

Times have changed. With the country facing a huge budget deficit, and a poor economy, the public tolerance has shrunk for billions of government payments that largely go to the biggest farmers.

The problem is that there isn’t that much money in cutting farm payments these days. Most farm subsidies are price-dependent, meaning they are bigger if prices are low and smaller if prices are high. Prices are hitting historic highs for many commodities, which means the bulk of these subsidies are not paying out very much money. Over time, the price-dependent subsidies have been the bulk of farm subsidies. They also distort agriculture markets by encouraging farmers to depend on payments from the government rather managing their business and hedging risks.

So – these days there’s only about $5b in farm payments being made, and these payments are not considered as damaging in international trade terms because they are not based on prices. Not nearly as juicy as when the government was regularly paying out $20-$25b a year when farm prices were lower. Corn subsidies were more than $10 billion in 2005. In 2009, they were less than $4b.

Still, Congress will probably make some cuts. But these cuts won’t really be reform and won’t produce much long-term savings unless they tackle the price-dependent subsidies. Taking a whack at those subsidies could save taxpayers money later and make sure our farm programs don’t hurt poor farmers in developing countries.

For more, see:

Eight budget cuts that would help poor people

“Fairness in the fields”