•HRES 439 IH 
Whereas in 1948, United States financial support of the Mar-
shall Plan represented a generous 13 percent of the Fed-
eral budget; 
Whereas the Marshall Plan made possible new measures of 
international cooperation by promoting European eco-
nomic integration which has enhanced the security, free-
dom, and prosperity of the United States and the world; 
Whereas the United States established foreign assistance pro-
grams, as prescribed by the Foreign Assistance Act of 
1961, with a goal of the ‘‘encouragement and sustained 
support of the people of developing countries in their ef-
forts to acquire the knowledge and resources essential to 
development and to build the economic, political, and so-
cial institutions which will improve the quality of their 
lives’’; 
Whereas in announcing the Millennium Challenge Account on 
March 15, 2002, President George W. Bush stated ‘‘The 
advance of development is a central commitment of 
American foreign policy. As a nation founded on the dig-
nity and value of every life, America’s heart breaks be-
cause of the suffering and senseless death we see in our 
world. We work for prosperity and opportunity because 
they’re right. It’s the right thing to do.’’; 
Whereas the World Bank reports that 2,400,000,000 people 
worldwide live on less than $2 per day; 
Whereas the United States has one of the highest levels of 
poverty among industrialized countries; 
Whereas the United States should also work toward improv-
ing the life of its own poorest population, as 15 percent 
live below the Federal poverty level; 
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•HRES 439 IH 
Whereas 1,650,000 households in the United States are in 
extreme poverty, as defined by each person living on less 
than $2 per day; 
Whereas there are more than 47,000,000 persons living on 
incomes less than the Federal Poverty Level, including 
nearly 11,000,000 African-American persons, nearly 
2,000,000 Asian persons, and more than 13,000,000 His-
panic persons; 
Whereas at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000, 
the United States joined more than 180 countries in 
committing to work toward the United Nations Millen-
nium Development Goals to improve life for the world’s 
poorest people by 2015; 
Whereas more than halfway to the 2015 deadline to achieve 
the Millennium Development Goals, major advances in 
the fight against poverty and hunger have begun to slow 
or even reverse as a result of the global economic and 
food crises, a progress report by the United Nations has 
found; 
Whereas empowering people in the United States and abroad 
to support themselves will provide a solid foundation for 
global economic recovery; 
Whereas the economic gap between the rich and the poor is 
even greater today than it was following World War II, 
when the United States Congress deemed the Marshall 
Plan essential to the security of the United States; 
Whereas reducing poverty may assist in warding off harsh 
conditions that extremists may exploit to rally support 
for political violence; 
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•HRES 439 IH 
Whereas United States citizens and nongovernmental organi-
zations have proposed a new Global Marshall Plan, in-
cluding— 
(1) providing increased funding to eliminate poverty, 
homelessness, hunger, inadequate education, and health 
care domestically and globally in addition to restoring the 
global environment; 
(2) revising existing trade and other agreements in 
which the United States is currently involved so that 
such agreements favor improving the lives of the poor 
around the world, and approaching future agreements 
with like intent; and 
(3) providing training to children and adults world-
wide in techniques of nonviolent communication, diver-
sity, environmental sustainability, family and parental 
support, stress reduction, emergency health techniques, 
diet and exercise, and caring for others who are in need 
of help; and 
Whereas a Global Marshall Plan, embracing a strategy of 
generosity, would reaffirm the United States commitment 
to ending global and United States poverty: Now, there-
fore, be it 
Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Rep-
resentatives that— 
(1) the elimination of poverty and hunger 
should remain key foreign and domestic policy goals 
for the United States; 
(2) a Global Marshall Plan holds the potential 
to transform development assistance in a manner 
that would significantly reduce poverty; and 
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•HRES 439 IH 
(3) the President should implement a Global 
Marshall Plan to increase United States assistance 
towards the elimination of poverty. 
Æ 
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