The world's most respected humanitarian and development organizations are joining together this year to call for a historic and badly needed increase in poverty-fighting funding in the 2008 budget. And ONE has a special role to play.
Senators Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) are asking other Senators to join their letter to the Senate Budget Committee asking them to take decisive action against extreme poverty by setting a new bar for funding.
Please take a moment to call and ask your Senators to join Senators Dodd and Smith at this critical moment.
The request represents strong leadership; 2.4 billion dollars above and beyond the president's budget request for fighting poverty in the international affairs budget. Currently we're not on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals - the internationally agreed upon goals to halve extreme poverty by 2015 - and only with bold requests like this can we hope to make-up the difference.
Congress is moving quickly, we only have a few days to take action. The budget committee is meeting to decide the 2008 budget later this week. In order for us to get our message through in time we need to pick up the phone and call our Senators today to ask them to sign-on to the Dodd-Smith letter.
Call 1-800-786-2ONE (1-800-786-2663) to be connected with your senators' offices and tell them to sign the Dodd-Smith "Dear Colleague" letter.
Earlier this week, ONE members whose representatives sit on the budget committee, sent over 10,000 letters to their legislators. When the committee members receive the Dodd-Smith letter later this week, they will know that the funding increase has the support of both grassroots advocates and their fellow legislators.
The last time we rallied around a "Dear Colleague" letter in January we came out with $1.45 billion dollars of lifesaving funding. Now, we hope to set a new bar for the fight against poverty.
Thank you for your voice,
Josh Peck, ONE.org
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