“[Senator John McCain's health care] plan would be a disaster,” said former Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.) at the start of a conference call discussing McCain’s health care plan. Graham and current Senator Bob Casey, Jr. (D-Pa.) both made statements about how “out of touch” McCain is with the American people and their hopes for health care reform. Casey spoke about McCain’s $1.3 trillion cuts in Medicaid and Medicare over the next ten years and his readjustment from employer based health care to a $5,000 credit system for households, which is less than half of the price of most health care plans. Both men promoted Senator Barack Obama’s plan by emphasizing its focus on middle class families.

The United States, a country with so much abundance, cannot sit back as impoverished nations suffer from high food prices, said John Hamre, President and CEO of The Center for Strategic and International Studies. (more…)

At a discussion hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies on developing definitive strategies against the world food shortage, Senator Robert Casey (D-Pa.) says Americans are summoned by their consciences to help. He said the extent of the food crisis is “hard to even comprehend.” (0:38)

 

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Five senators held a press conference today immediately following a vote on a Democratic proposal to “suspend filling the nearly full Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in order to increase supply and lower energy prices,” the official release said. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said that Saudi Arabia currently produces nearly two million barrels of oil per day below capacity, and said that prices would likely lower by 50 cents per gallon in the next month or two if they increased production by just one million barrels per day. Schumer said that himself and the other senators wanted to present President Bush with a “motion of disapproval” of the Saudi arms deal, and urge him to put pressure on the Saudis to increase productivity and lower prices as he leaves for his trip to the Middle East today. “We are saying to the Saudis that ‘if you don’t help us, why should we be helping you?’” Schumer said. “You need our arms, but we need you to cooperate and not strangle American consumers.”
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At a news conference held in the Capitol, Senator Bob Casey (D-PA) says we have too look at other options [in dealing with the food crisis]. One, to permanently increase crop yields so that nations can feed themselves. Second, to reduce the costs of overseas food networks, so that more of the food that is donated will feed the hungry instead of spoiling in warehouses. (0:32)

 

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At a news conference held in the Capitol, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) says the instability that this [the food crisis] can create in countries around the world, can be just as damaging as terrorism. If we don’t deal with this in a direct way, we run the risk of needing more peacekeeping forces. (0:23)

 

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At a news conference held in the Capitol, Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL), said this is the worst food crisis he can think of, and it is
not only a crisis about food, it’s about global security. The requested amount in US food aid, $550 million, is the same amount of
money that is spent daily in Iraq. He demonstrated the rioting taking place in other parts of the world by displaying large photos of Haiti and Egypt, plus a close up photo of villagers in Mahboobmagar, India, reaching for rice that was being sold by government officials. He said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice agrees with his sentiment, and they need adequate funds to deal with this insecurity. Damage with a food crisis, he said, can be as damaging as any other threat. (more…)