Bill Richardson gave all of us something to be happy with during his speech in Iowa this past week. In his speech, titled, “Facing Down the Threats of the 21st century,” Richardson presented his plans to combat global disease and extreme poverty.

Governor Richardson stated his commitment to double foreign assistance funding to 2% of the federal budget. Though that is a rather abstract number to many, including me, it represents billions of dollars in new money to better the lives of the world’s poor. This year, our total federal budget was approximately $3 trillion dollars, so that means 2% would be approximately $60 billion dollars. Though the budget for this year is not completed (the president and Congress are supposed to get this done by October 1 each year, but it hasn’t happened in the past few years), we expect foreign assistance funding to be about $29 billion.

Governor Richardson mentioned several issues – human trafficking, refugee crises, hunger, debt relief, microfinance, and the importance of the World Bank – that we have not heard much about during this campaign. Governor Richardson also recognized the importance of continued and increased medical research for the treatment and cure of the world’s biggest killers including AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, cancer and heart disease.

Just last week, we got word of a new malaria vaccine that was effective in 45% of children one to four years old. Though this clearly isn’t a perfect vaccine, when nearly a million African children are dying every year of this disease, keeping 45% alive is a good start. The United States is the most innovative country in the world – we have to find solutions to these killer diseases. We thank the Governor for presenting his plans on these issues.

All in all, a great week for ONE with Senator Brownback and Governor Richardson speaking out on these critical issues.

-Josh Lozman, ONE Vote ‘08 Policy Manager