Newsweek Interviews David Beckmann

In a political season, it’s easy for a journalist to be cynical—until David Beckmann walks into your office. Beckmann, in his blue blazer, looks like any Washington lobbyist, down to the dark circles under his eyes. But his message is completely without spin and his manner is as flat as the Nebraska plains where he grew up. An economist and former executive at the World Bank, Beckmann believes it is possible to end world hunger and poverty through good politics and policies.

That's how a recent article in Newsweek.com strarts.  The piece, entitled Dare to Care, offers a great insight about Bread for the World President David Beckmann's position (and Bread for the World's)  on the need to keep the needs of the poor as a policy priority.

What particularly infuriates Beckmann, and this he expresses in the mildest way, is that despite all the midterm talk about “the next generation” and “our future,” neither party has made poverty an election-year priority. “There has been no sustained effort to reduce poverty since Nixon,” he says.

It's a great piece, and it's great that hunger and poverty are getting attention amid all the noise of the electoral season.