For excellent insight into the federal budget and the status of appropriations, especially for human needs programs (health, education, housing, nutrition etc.), visit the Coalition of Human Needs, www.chn.org. Also see Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, www.cbpp.org.

View the slideshow on the federal budget, how it works, and how citizens can impact it. The URL is http://www.chn.org/budgettrainingjanfeb2007final_files/frame.htm.

To get weekly updates of federal action on foreign and military affairs bills, especially appropriations, contact John Isaacs, Council for a Livable World (advocacy@clw.org).

Friends Committee on National Legislation is an excellent source of information on a broad range of issues. Visit www.fcnl.org for Congressional bills falling into the following categories: Civil Liberties, Conventional Weapons, Environment, Federal Budget, Iraq, Native American, Nuclear Disarmament, Torture, other.

Below is a list of selected bills of special interest to HPJC. It will expand and/or change over time:

Single payer health care:  HR 676 

Close the School of the Americas:  HR 1707

Rep. Jim McGovern introduced HR 1707 on March 27, 2007, with 72 original co-sponsors! It would suspend operations at the SOA/ WHINSEC and investigate the association of torture and human rights abuses associated with the school. For more information, visit the School of the Americas Watch website, www.soa.org

Senate Fair Elections Act Now:  S1285

Sens. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Arlen Specter (R-PA) introduced the Fair Elections Now Act, legislation that would implement a system of public financing for candidates running for a seat in the U.S. Senate. Co-Sponsors include Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Tom Carper (D-DE), Russ Feingold (D-WI), Tom Harkin (D-IA), Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Claire McCaskill (D-MO), and Barack Obama (D-IL). For more information, visit the website of Common Cause, http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=2876971, or Public Campaign, http://www.publicampaign.org/node/38166. A similar bill will shortly be introduced into the House.

Free Trade Agreement with Colombia

 The Bush Administration's hopes for the Free Trade of the Americas Agreement, which would have extended a NAFTA/CAFTA-type regime to all of South America, were dashed when progressive leaders came to power in many South American nations. So the administration switched its strategy to negotiating bi-lateral pacts with the few nations that are still willing to endorse the neo-liberal model. A pact with Peru got through Congress in November. The big fight is over Colombia, where the U.S. has a major military presence under the guise of the "war on drugs." Colombia has the worst human rights record in the hemisphere, and the highest murder rate of trade unionists in the world. Major citizen opposition to the pact (as well as to continued military aid) has so far stymied Congressional ratification. There will be no vote in 2007. But the administration and the economic elites it serves will certainly renew the push in 2008.

Establishing a Department of Peace

H.R. 808 would establish a Cabinet-level U.S. Department of Peace to refocus our nation's efforts away from a militarized foreign policy and also on ways to prevent domestic violence.

Expanding Debt Cancellation for World's Poorest Nations

The Jubilee Act for Responsible Lending and Expanded Debt Cancellation (H.R. 2634 in the U.S. House of Representatives, S. 2166 in the U.S. Senate) would expand eligibility for 100 percent debt cancellation
without harmful economic conditions to 20 more impoverished countries in the Global South (for a total of 67). The criterion for inclusion is that a nation needs debt forgiveness to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. The legislation would cancel impoverishedcountry debt, prohibit harmful economic and policy conditions on debt cancellation such as user fees for health care and schooling, mandate transparency and responsibility in lending from governments and international financial institutions, call for a new legal framework to restrict the activities of predatory "vulture funds" that have bought national debt from the IMF and World Bank, and call for a U.S. audit of debts resulting from odious and illegitimate lending. To ask your two Senators and Representative to co-sponsor, go to the website of Jubilee USA, http://www.jubileeusa.org/index.php.

Verifiable Voting in November 2008 Election: H.R. 5036

Because 17 states currently have no way to hold a ballot recount when
electronic voting machines have malfunctioned or there is suspicion of
tampering, Rep. Tim Holt (D-NJ) filed this bill. It would "direct the
Administrator of General Services to reimburse certain jurisdictions
for the costs of obtaining paper ballot voting systems for the general
elections for Federal office to be held in November 2008, to reimburse
jurisdictions for the costs incurred in conducting audits or hand
counting of the results of the general elections for Federal office to
be held in November 2008..." and for other purposes. For more
information, visit http://www.commoncause.org.