Rep. Smith: Poverty act critics' real target is Obama

WASHINGTON — It isn't a high-profile bill, but the Global Poverty Act has lit up the conservative blogosphere, and even Rush Limbaugh has gotten into the act.

Quietly approved by the U.S. House of Representatives last fall with bipartisan support, the bill, sponsored by Rep. Adam Smith, D-Tacoma, would require the president to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to help reduce extreme global poverty.

Conservative critics — including talk-radio host Limbaugh and Tony Perkins, who heads the Family Research Council — claim that the measure would cost U.S. taxpayers $845 billion over the next dozen or so years. They also charge that it would tie the United States to the United Nations Millennium Declaration, which, among others things, calls for banning "small arms and light weapons" and ratifying the Kyoto global-warming treaty, the International Criminal Court Treaty and the Convention on Biological Diversity.

They've sought to tie the legislation to much broader goals promoted by the United Nations, including that nations spend 0.7 percent of their gross national product on eradicating poverty and providing other assistance to the world's poor.

Smith says there's no link and points out that no additional spending is mandated in his bill.

He said the attacks weren't aimed at him but rather at Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, whom he recruited last year to be the bill's chief Senate sponsor. Smith is the chairman of the Obama campaign in Washington state.

Limbaugh, according to a transcript of his radio show, last week called the bill an effort to "soak U.S. taxpayers again to fund global, liberal feel-good garbage."

Smith said he wasn't surprised that his bill had come under attack.

"Anything can happen in the blogosphere," he said. He denies that his bill would have the dire consequences Limbaugh and others claim it would.

"It doesn't do any of those things," Smith said. But he said it was time for the United States to take an aggressive role in helping the 1 billion people worldwide who live on less than $1 a day.

The bill, which had 84 House sponsors, including a handful of Republicans, passed the House on a voice vote in September. It's now headed to the Senate floor.