An Alabama congressman, hungry from a symbolic one-day fast, said Oct. 16 he is promoting another round of international debt relief because previous loan forgiveness has improved health care, education and security in developing countries.
"If you do something that worked so well, you wonder, ‘Why not go back and do more?’" Rep. Spencer Bachus said. Bachus is the lead Republican sponsor on the latest attempt to cancel more long-standing international debt, this time for up to 67 countries where even interest payments can be crushing. His motivation is a mix of religious conviction and concern for human rights and national security and dates to 2000 when the first of two debt relief measures was approved.
"Tens of millions of schoolchildren in Africa alone are attending class that weren’t seven years ago," Bachus said. "The fact that their future prospects are so much greater and poverty will begin to fall with education, the benefits of that to our country and to the world are unimaginable."
Bachus and other congressional advocates of debt cancellation ended their 24-hour fast at the Oct. 16 prayer breakfast on Capitol Hill, where religious groups gathered to promote an expanded debt relief bill.
The legislation, known in shorthand as the Jubilee Act of 2007, is sponsored by Rep. Maxine Waters, a liberal Democrat from California who acknowledged the unusual partnership she’s had with the Alabama conservative. She called their friendship, developed over the debt relief bill, a "miracle."
The legislation cites some recent examples of what countries have done with the money that otherwise would have been spent paying back loans. Zambia, for instance, in 2006 used its savings of $23.8 million for agricultural and health care projects. In Uganda that same year, almost $60 million was spent addressing electricity shortages, primary education, malaria control, health care and water infrastructure.
"As a Christian, and I don’t speak for all religions, but it is wonderful that all the great religions of the world preach really the same thing when it comes to debt relief," said Bachus, a member of Hunter Street Baptist Church, Hoover. (RNS)
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