Obama talks (and talks and talks) the talk on global poverty, and the talk is for more talks

On the same OTB post I referenced just below, someone in the comments demanded to know (for purposes of contrasting Gov. Palin's accomplishments with Sen. Obama's) what bills Obama had introduced. I think he meant to ask, actually, what bills Obama had introduced that had actually passed the Senate, despite opposition, and then been enacted into law via passage through the House and the president's signature (or a veto override). To this inquiry, a commenter named "Sam" replied:

"Global Poverty Act" (S.2433) — do a little research first, ok? You're not going to like the bill, but he (his office) did write it.

After reading this, I quickly confirmed my suspicion that this "Global Poverty Act" had not been passed by the Senate. In fact, while the bill did get to the committee stage, way back in April 2008 in fact, and was voted out of committee, the Senate leadership — Democrats including Reid et al. &151; has not seen fit to bring it to the floor for discussion, much less a vote, and according to the govtrack.us website, it "would appear ... to be abandoned."

Surely, as per Sen. Obama's "this is the moment" speeches, this bill would have eliminated global poverty if it only it were to be enacted, wouldn't it? Or at least reduce poverty?

Think again.

Here's the official summary written by the Congressional Research Service (boldface mine):

Global Poverty Act of 2007 - Directs the President, through the Secretary of State, to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the U.S. foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.

Requires the strategy to contain specific and measurable goals and to consist of specified components, including: (1) continued investment or involvement in existing U.S. initiatives related to international poverty reduction and trade preference programs for developing countries; (2) improving the effectiveness of development assistance and making available additional overall United States assistance levels as appropriate; (3) enhancing and expanding debt relief as appropriate; (4) mobilizing and leveraging the participation of businesses and public-private partnerships; (5) coordinating the goal of poverty reduction with other internationally recognized Millennium Development Goals; and (6) integrating principles of sustainable development and entrepreneurship into policies and programs.

Sets forth specified reporting requirements. Directs the Secretary of State to designate a coordinator who will have primary responsibility for overseeing and drafting the reports, as well as responsibility for helping to implement recommendations contained in the reports.

Defines specified terms.

In short, it's a bill that does nothing to eliminate or reduce poverty itself, but mandates that the president and his staff talk about eliminating poverty.

That is just too precious. More talk, more strategies — that's change you can believe in, all right!

You can't make this stuff up that's this funny. Thanks for the suggestion about doing more research, Sam!