Word: foreign-aid
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Such confusion and delay are all too characteristic of the whole U.S. foreign-aid program. Parsimony as well: Bush's request of $14.6 billion for fiscal 1990, which began Oct. 1, is only $1.5 billion higher than the $13.1 billion spent nine years ago. Moreover, nearly half of all aid is allocated to the so-called Big Five -- Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, Turkey and the Philippines -- mostly to fulfill old commitments. That leaves pitifully little to further such new goals as nurturing fledgling allies. Bush's request for aid to % Namibia, a new African democracy, is an all-but-invisible half...
Influential voices in Congress have been calling for a thorough review and possible overhaul of the entire foreign-aid program, and Bush last week pronounced himself "interested" in the idea. The Administration, however, is undecided about what it wants. Some Bush advisers have proposed foreign aid as a topic of one of the five commencement addresses the President will deliver this month, but so far they cannot agree on what he ought to say. Some senior officials would be content with an enlarged discretionary fund that the President could direct as he sees fit. The added flexibility, these officials suggest...
...resistance reflects abysmal ignorance. At community forums in his district, says Congressman Jerry Lewis, a California Republican, "I have never had a suggestion from the audience that foreign aid was lower than 15% of our budget." The actual figure: 1.2%. So long as such misconceptions rule, the outlook for foreign-aid reform is distressingly...
...Washington. "The kind of automatic support of Israel that existed for years on Capitol Hill is simply not here anymore," says the administrative assistant to a Jewish member of Congress. A case in point: the reaction to a proposal by Senate Republican leader Robert Dole to free up foreign-aid dollars for the fledgling democracies of Eastern Europe and Latin America by cutting 5% from the $6.9 billion earmarked for five key allies, Israel included. Says a Jewish member of Congress: "If a private vote were taken, Dole's proposal would pass overwhelmingly...
...savings in the $14.6 billion foreign-aid budget would go to East European nations and drug-fighting countries in South America. Nearly half the total is earmarked for five countries: Israel ($3 billion), Egypt ($2.1 billion), Turkey ($610 million), the Philippines ($360 million) and Pakistan ($490 million). Cutting aid to Israel is too sensitive an issue for most lawmakers, and aid to Egypt has been inviolate since the 1978 Camp David accords. Dole's idea may be politically inexpedient, but it underlines the need for flexibility at a time of rapid change...