THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, July 3, 1995 TAG: 9506300023
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 73 lines
The public thinks the government spends too much on foreign aid. House Republicans enlisted the support of 12 Democrats and passed a foreign-relations measure recently that would shrink aid, streamline the bureaucracy and advance several conservative-agenda items if the Senate goes along.
It is often supposed that vast sums are spent on foreign aid. In fact, the current level of spending is $12.7 billion, less than one percent of federal spending. The House bill would reduce the outlay to $10.8 billion by fiscal 1997.
The bill also calls for eliminating the Agency for International Development, the U.S. Information Agency and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. The functions they perform that haven't been made obsolete by the end of the Cold War would be carried out by the State Department.
Other provisions include less money for the United Nations, restrictions on peacekeeping funds unless the United Nations reforms its scandalous accounting and management practices, and a 50 percent reduction in funds for U.N. family-planning activities.
Cutting back aid isn't unreasonable in times of tight budgets, but much of it goes to purchase U.S. goods, so is really aid to American farmers and manufacturers. Aid can also serve as a useful carrot, so shouldn't be abandoned to win domestic political points.
Of course, politics makes aid to Israel and Egypt sacrosanct, and they are the two biggest recipients, accounting together for more than $5 billion a year. No cuts have been proposed though such aid is hard to justify almost 20 years after Camp David. If peace benefits both parties, why should we be footing the bill?
Consolidating downsized foreign-affairs activities in the State Department makes sense as does an attempt to make the United Nations more accountable. However, the bungling by U.N. peacekeepers in Bosnia should be kept in perspective. There will be occasions when an international presence is needed but the United States won't want to put its troops in harm's way. The United Nations can serve a useful purpose in such circumstances. We ought to be working toward a more-efficient, more-responsible United Nations, not its elimination.
Domestic anti-abortion politics are behind deep cuts in population funding and a proposed ban on any aid supporting abortion. Some abortion practices in China are glaring human-rights violations and should be condemned. All funds should be cut off to countries that permit such policies.
But opposition to abortion shouldn't mean opposition to all family planning in the Third World. In too many countries, family planning is primitive and the United Nations the only agency capable of performing an educational and medical role. Cutting funds could doom countless unwanted children to lives that are poor, nasty, brutish and short.
The House proposes to cut off aid to Russia unless that nation scuttles a deal to sell nuclear technology to Iran and stops the fighting in Chechnya. Both are desirable ends, but whether tying them to aid can be effective is far from certain.
Finally, the House has appended to this bill a call for the president to break the U.N. arms embargo against Bosnia. It passed overwhelmingly. That increasingly looks like the only available way to combat Serbian aggression. But all these issues will be debated in the Senate, which may water down the bill.
Spending less on foreign aid certainly makes sense and is overdue. Other reforms indicated above are worth doing, but Congress should resist the impulse to micromanage foreign policy. They didn't like it when a Democratic Congress tried it with Republican presidents, and that can happen again. Foreign policy should remain a largely presidential prerogative. by CNB