Tom Lantos: “First, I want to commend my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde), for the power and…”

“First, I want to commend my good friend and colleague, the gentleman from Illinois (Chairman Hyde), for the power and integrity of his convictions. The Millennium Challenge Account would not have been possible without his leadership and commitment to a bipartisan approach to international poverty reduction. The Millennium Challenge Account, as conceived by the President and crafted by the Committee on International Relations, marks the beginning of a revolution in U.S. international development assistance by recognizing the importance of democratic rule, good governance, and human rights. In achieving sustainable levels of economic growth and social development, the MCA creates the political and economic linkages critical to reducing poverty and to achieving progress. At the same time, the MCA removes the Cold War-era strategic calculus from the development assistance equation. Each potential recipient of our assistance is to be judged on its own merits, based on their commitment to progress and our commitment to the political, economic, social, and humanitarian value of development assistance. Finally, the MCA implicitly endorses a critical aspect of our approach to combatting international terrorism.”