Chuck Hagel on Welfare & Poverty Republican Sr Senator (NE)

Fund welfare via churches & block grants to states

Indicate which principles you support regarding poverty and the welfare system.
• Support housing assistance for welfare recipients.
• Continue to give states and local governments responsibility for welfare programs through TANF block grants.
• Maintain current welfare-to-work requirements in order for states to qualify for block grants.
• Restore food stamp programs to legal immigrants.
• Transfer homeless housing programs to states through block grants.
• Direct federal poverty aid through religious, community-based, or other non-profit organizations.
• Provide states with additional funding for Medicaid programs to alleviate increasing state budget deficits.
• Expanded principles: “I believe states should be given the flexibility to provide assistance to welfare recipients as they see fit, including housing assistance.”

Tax credits to promote home ownership in distressed areas.

Amends the Internal Revenue Code to permit a community homeownership tax credit based upon an applicable percentage of each qualified residence's eligible basis. Makes such credit available to residences (including factory built homes) located:

1. in a census tract with a median gross income not exceeding 80 percent of the greater area or statewide median gross income;
2. in a rural area;
3. on an Indian reservation; or
4. in an area of chronic economic distress.

Develop a strategy to eliminate extreme global poverty.

A BILL to require the President to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day.

Congress makes the following findings:
1. More than 1 billion people worldwide live on less than $1 per day, and another 1.6 billion people struggle to survive on less than $2 per day.
2. At the UN Millennium Summit in 2000, the US joined more than 180 other countries in committing to work toward goals to improve life for the world's poorest people by 2015.
3. The year 2007 marks the mid-point to the Millennium Development Goals deadline of 2015.
4. The UN Millennium Development Goals include the goal of reducing by 1/2 the proportion of people that live on less than $1 per day, & cutting in half the proportion of people suffering from hunger and unable to access safe drinking water and sanitation.

REQUIREMENT TO DEVELOP COMPREHENSIVE STRATEGY: The US Government shall develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the US foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by 1/2 the proportion of people worldwide who live on less than $1 per day. The strategy shall include specific and measurable goals, efforts to be undertaken, benchmarks, and timetables to achieve the objectives.