News:
Keith Ellison Authors Resolution for a Global Marshall Plan
At the close of World War II, the United States undertook one of the greatest outpourings of foreign aid in world history, the Marshall Plan. Over four years, the United States spent over $12 billion on aid to nations ravaged by WWII (friend and foe alike), in hopes that our generosity could hold back the economic depression and political instability that would have arisen from the war’s devastation.
The Marshall Plan, and the international efforts that the Plan helped jump-start, made America a model of the good that can be done by a prosperous country with a sense of global purpose and obligation. America benefited, as well. The politics of plenty helped create international relationships, markets, and attitudes that helped the United States survive the Cold War, rise up as an economic superpower, and attain a position of moral authority in the world.
Over the past eight years, our moral authority has been eroded. We have pursued a wasteful and tragic war in Iraq. We have refused to engage in active diplomacy. We have isolated ourselves with our single-mindedness.
That isolation is costly. While the Bush Administration has been pursuing a foreign policy that pushed us away from the global table, the rest of the world has been growing closer. Russia, China, India, and others have been opening new markets, established trade agreements, and distributing foreign aid – all while we spend our treasure and lives on Iraq.
We know poverty, disease, and hopelessness set the stage for the conditions that give rise to terrorism. We know relieving those conditions makes the world safer and more prosperous. And we know the United States has the talent, resources, and resolve to make a huge difference.
This is why Keith Ellison, along with two of his colleagues in the House, has authored a resolution to establish a “Global Marshall Plan,” dramatically increasing the United States’ commitment to overcoming the desperate poverty one-third of the world’s population suffers from. The resolution expresses the sense of the House that the United States must re-order its relationship with the world, toward an approach to foreign policy that emphasizes the politics of generosity and inclusion.
The resolution expresses the sense that a Global Marshall Plan would take the following steps to ease global poverty:
-Combine the monetary resources of United States citizens and non-profit organizations to raise and distribute the money necessary to eliminate poverty and disease in those areas of the world that most suffer
-Revise trade and other agreements to emphasize improving the lives of the poor
-Dramatically expand the United States’ Peace Corps
-Provide training to foreign militaries to address their society’s infrastructure needs
-Foster training in the techniques of health maintenance, proper diet and exercise, non-violent conflict resolution, and environmental sustainability
By refocusing our energy on eliminating global poverty, repairing our environment, and fostering non-violent conflict resolution, we are creating the conditions to share in an era of unprecedented peace and prosperity.
To read the resolution, please click here.