MB Civic

Bono, the U2 star, has always been good at turning a quick phrase, and last week was no exception. During a stop in Rwanda, which was part of a six-nation tour of Africa, the Irish singer turned philanthropist described a recent meeting he had held with members of the House Appropriations Committee, including Representative Jerry Lewis, the Republican chairman from California.

“We spoke to the good men and women,” Bono said at a news conference after touring a hospital in Kigali. “They welcomed us with opened arms, patted us on the back and shook our hands, and their eyes misted up at the right place.”

And when he left town, Bono said, those same committee members turned around and slashed President Bush’s request for $3 billion more for foreign aid down to $600 million.

The House action, unfortunately, is business as usual when it comes to aid. The politicians in Washington talk a beautiful game about trying to combat global poverty. They make grand speeches about the crying need of AIDS orphans in Uganda. They paint touching pictures of American plans to help.

Last year was long on promises. The British prime minister, Tony Blair, called Africa’s poverty “the fundamental moral challenge of our generation.” The United Nations’ secretary general, Kofi Annan, characterized our generation as one that could make poverty history. President Bush twice stood on the world stage and promised to sharply increase development assistance to poor nations. He did it first at the Group of 8 summit meeting in Scotland in July, when he pledged to double aid to Africa by 2010. He did it again two months later, at a United Nations meeting in New York, where he urged that the Monterrey Consensus, which calls on rich countries to increase their spending on development aid to 0.7 percent of gross national product, be put into effect.

So far, this year has been disgracefully short on anything resembling action. Talks at the World Trade Organization to reduce global farm subsidies, a move that would help poor countries, have stalled. And the House decision to slash President Bush’s request is another reminder of the hypocrisy of all those speeches about making poverty history.

Mr. Bush should be commended for trying to significantly increase aid to Africa from the cellar depths in which it resided during the Clinton administration. But he has not tried hard enough. He should go to Capitol Hill and demand that lawmakers fully finance his Millennium Challenge Account, which is supposed to increase United States help to poor countries that are committed to policies promoting development. He should press Congress to finance the practical, ground-level aid efforts that have been shown to work. That means channeling real money into village-based water programs, malaria vaccines, AIDS drugs, mosquito bed nets and school feeding programs.

The Senate takes up the budget bill next. We dearly hope that President Bush has the backbone to stand behind the promises he made, and to press lawmakers in Washington to do the right thing.