SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2009 -- (Senate - May 20, 2009)
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AMENDMENT NO. 1161
Mr. BROWN. I ask unanimous consent to set aside the pending amendments and call up amendment No. 1161.
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Mr. BROWN. Mr. President, I begin by thanking the senior Senator from Mississippi for his good work and for his cooperation on bringing this amendment forward. I rise to offer amendment No. 1161, which is intended to ensure that the International Monetary Fund fulfills its mission in a manner consistent with American values and American objectives. This amendment would help ensure that the human cost of this economic crisis is not exacerbated, is not made worse, by cuts to nutrition and to health and to education programs.
Without a doubt, we are facing the greatest economic crisis in decades, a crisis that has worldwide implications. Unemployment is up, not just in my home State of Ohio or in the State of the Presiding Officer, of New Mexico, but across this Nation and around the world. In low-income countries, workers are toiling away for increasingly lower wages and children are all too often going without health care, without enough food, and with little education.
The World Bank estimates the global economic crisis will push an additional 46 million people into poverty this year. If the crisis persists, an additional 2.8 million children under 5 may die from preventable and treatable diseases between now and 2015.
As governments across the globe find themselves in dire straits, the IMF has stepped in to provide badly needed loans to countries in trouble but often at the expense of social spending programs. In the past, the IMF has loaned money to nations, often with the requirement that these countries balance their budgets, cut spending and raise interest rates. Of course, there is nothing wrong with balanced budgets, but in an economic crisis such as the one we currently face, how can the IMF ask countries to cut spending on education, on health care, on nutrition, in order to undertake policies that might actually cause more harm than good? The upshot of these policies is the world's weakest and most vulnerable are the ones who suffer. The first items cut from budgets are social spending programs. In fact, the IMF has actually required that countries cap spending on health care and education and nutrition.
If these conditions continue to be placed on countries receiving IMF funds, our attempts to provide assistance to those in need will be undercut, all in the name of fiscal responsibility. Let me be clear: The purpose of this amendment is not to inhibit IMF lending. I recognize the importance of the IMF and I recognize the role it will play in stabilizing the global economy, but it is especially for this reason we must be able to hold it accountable.
The administration's inclusion of IMF money in the supplemental appropriation is an opportunity for us to make a statement to the International Monetary Fund, to make sure that the money we loan to the IMF is used for programs that do not adversely affect the most vulnerable in the world. We must ensure the IMF doesn't force countries to cut spending for health care or education or nutrition at the expense of balanced budgets or shoring up central banks.
We must ensure that social spending--education, health care, nutrition--is protected not only for humanitarian and moral reasons but also for the long-term security and stability of those countries.
We must be able to hold the IMF accountable for its policies. We must use our voice and our vote to reflect our commitment to education, to the fight against global poverty, and to the welfare of workers everywhere. That is what this amendment will accomplish.
I yield the floor.
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