Over the weekend Edith posted about Bono’s speech to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington last week. I must confess I hadn’t seen or heard anything about Bono’s address before Edith mentioned it, but then I wasn’t particularly the intended audience.

In his rousing speech Bono said he had spent most of his life avoiding religious people because, as he saw it, “religion often gets in the way of God.” He remarked that regardless of peoples views on God “most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives.” And he urged the assembled audience to help address the issue of poverty by, as he put it, getting involved with what God is doing.

“God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house… God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives… God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war… God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.” He said.

For about half an hour Bono had the ear of some of the most important decision makers in America, the world even! In the end he concluded his speech by suggesting that the richest country in the world, whom he congratulated for their generosity, “see the flow of effective foreign assistance as tithing” and as such increase the amount of foreign aid by one percent which would bring the total of foreign aid given by the United States to just less than two percent of the federal budget, effectively doubling what it is now. He called the increase “enlightened economic self interest, and a better safer world rolled into one.” Saying too that this was justice, not charity.

The speech probably came to late to affect any changes to President Bush’s $2,700,000,000,000 annual budget proposal in which the President proposes yet more money for military activities paid for by cuts in social areas like, for example, justice.

But even though there are cuts-a-plenty Bono and the ONE campaign he represents, must surely be pleased to see significant increases in his two aid programs: the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), which was set up to reward “good performers” among poor countries, and the three-year-old PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief ).

Of course the President Budget Proposal is just that, a proposal, it will surely undergo some changes and many involved in education, healthcare and the environment will be watching that carefully.

Forty-two education programs are targeted for elimination as $3,500,000,000 is slashed from the Department of Education budget. Healthcare is going to be hit hit hard too with a variety of changes that have critics up in arms. The Environmental Protection Agency have to tighten their belt too in the budget proposal. $300,000,000 is to be cut from their budget effecting mainly air and water pollution programs.

There is some relief for though for those affected by last years Hurricane Katrina. It comes in the form a proposed ten percent increase in funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which includes a tripling – to $150 million – in grants for pre-disaster mitigation efforts, to reduce potential damage from disasters. Clearly giving aid to those affected by disasters and emergencies on home soil has to be a priority to the government, but some may feel that increase isn’t enough when the current cost of the war in Iraq is already around $177,000,000 a day!

So today, as four US presidents attend the funeral today of Coretta Scott King, I wonder what her and her late husband would make of the Presidents budget. They were both ardent campaigners for civil rights and peace. Certainly more money for missiles might not seem like such a good idea to Martin Luther King Jr. who once said “We have guided missiles and misguided men.”

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Bono addresses the National Prayer Breakfast Video – Audio – Verified transcript
Bono Lauds, Prods Prayer Breakfast
Bono’s best sermon yet
The ONE campaign
Bush seeks another defense spend increase