A Very Important Phone Call to Washington

Urge Reps. Martin Heinrich, Harry Teague and Ben Ray Lujan to Co-Sponsor H.R. 2139

Now that we have an actual bill number in the U.S. House for our 2009 Offering of Letters, it should be easier to talk about and write letters about reforming foreign aid. H.R. 2139 directs the President of the United States to develop and implement a comprehensive national strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting global development, and for other purposes.

The initiative was introduced last week by Rep. Howard Berman, D-CA, and cosponsored by Rep. Mark Kirk, R-IL. Since then, only a handful of House members have signed on Click here to keep track of co-sponsors We need to expand this list before May 18, and hopefully make the list as bi-partisan as possible. H.R. 2139 is likely to be merged with related legislation during that week.

Bread for the World President David Beckmann tells us why it's so important to build up our list of cosponsors before then:

By getting as many cosponsors as possible, we are demonstrating that foreign assistance reform is a politically viable issue. If we fail at this juncture, I doubt that we will achieve broad reform of U.S. foreign assistance this year or next.

We want all three members of the House from New Mexico to join the list of cosponsors. If you haven't called one of those three representatives, won't you take 2 minutes to make the call?

Here's a toll-free number to the Capitol Switchboard: 800-826-3688

Briefing
If you want to hear an update and more details about H.R. 2139 and foreign-aid reform, join other Bread for the World members in a conference call. Use this toll-free number to participate 866-866-2244. Conference code: 1422871#