Bush Budget Seeks Big Boost In Foreign Aid

by Jim Lobe

(IPS) WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush has asked Congress to increase foreign aid in fiscal year 2006 by a whopping 17 percent, although analysts here say he will have a difficult time getting approval for all of it, particularly from his increasingly deficit-conscious fellow Republicans.

Most of the increase derives from a major boost in global AIDS funding and a three-billion-dollar request for his Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), a special two-year-old program for about a dozen poor countries that are committed to far-reaching economic and political reforms.

Because the program's launch has lagged badly, Congressional aides said the MCA may be particularly vulnerable to cuts as the aid bill wends its way through the legislative process. Congress approved $1.5 billion for the MCA for this year, one billion dollars short of Bush's initial request.

"We've appropriated $2.5 billion for the MCA over the past two years and not a dime has been disbursed," one aide told IPS. "So, with all the cuts on domestic programs, the president's not going to find it easy to make the case that we need 3 billion (dollars) more now."

Analysts also noted that, even with the increase in global AIDS funding and the MCA, Bush is still falling short of his 2002 promise at the global summit on development financing in Monterey, Mexico, to boost development aid by 50 percent by 2006.

"The president said he would fund these new initiatives without cutting back on existing programs," said Stephen Radelet of the Center for Global Development (CGD) here.

"Unfortunately, he has failed to deliver on that pledge because there are significant cuts in existing development programs."

The foreign aid request, which totals $22.9 billion, was part of a total FY06 federal budget request of $2.57 trillion. The request, which will now be taken up by Congress, features cuts in domestic programs for education, health care, and the environment and increases in the defense budget and homeland security.

At the same time, the budget does not include a number of other appropriations sought by the administration, such as an $80 billion request to fund U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as hundreds of billions of dollars that may be needed if Bush succeeds in partially privatising social security. These are to be handled in supplemental FY05 appropriations. The omission of the Iraq-Afghanistan request is particularly notable given Bush's proposed FY06 defense budget of nearly $420 billion -- a nearly five percent increase over FY05 and 15 percent higher in real terms than the average yearly amount Washington spent on the military during the Cold War, according to Steven Kosiak of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

If the $80 billion is added to the total, the actual increase in military spending comes to nearly $500 billion, or roughly half of global military expenditures. Against this, Bush's foreign aid request looks pretty meager, even if it is the most money in real terms since 1985.

While the three billion dollars for MCA marks a major increase over the $1.5 billion appropriated for FY05, spending for core humanitarian and development assistance programs will remain flat under Bush's request, although he is proposing important shifts among the different accounts.

Thus, spending on child survival programs, which stood at $1.8 billion in FY04 and $1.53 billion last year, will fall to $1.25 billion next year. At the same time, long-term development assistance, particularly in education, environment, water and sanitation, will be cut from $1.5 billion in FY05 to $1.15 billion next year under the president's proposal. "We are concerned that some core development programs were cut or funded at last year's levels during a time when there is increased need around the world," said Mary McClymont, the CEO of InterAction, a coalition of some 160 U.S. relief and development agencies.

"Not only do these core programs help people help themselves, they are also an important element for making the world more stable and America safer."

While long-term development assistance was cut, the administration is calling for increases of several hundred million dollars in refugee, migration, and international disaster assistance, as well its "transition initiatives," a multi-purpose program designed to bolster "fragile states," particularly Ethiopia, Sudan, Afghanistan, and Haiti. Funding for new bilateral programs for these countries will rise from zero to $270 million, all of it taken from the development assistance account.

Contributions to international organizations will be cut by a total of some 47 million dollars. Washington's contribution to UNICEF, the UN children's agency, is set to fall from $124 million to $114 million despite the appointment of Bush's agriculture secretary, Ann Veneman, to succeed Carol Bellamy as director.

Bush is also proposing a reduction in the U.S. contribution to the UN Development Program (UNDP), an agency that until recently was always led by a U.S. citizen, from $108 million to $95 million.

At the same time, the new budget proposes an increase of 113 percent for UN peacekeeping operations, to $1.03 billion, in part to make up for Congress' approval of only $483 million for FY05, some $170 million short of the administration's request.

Steve Dimoff, an analyst at the United Nations Association (UNA-USA), said the new request, which will almost certainly be assailed by some Republican lawmakers, does not take account of an impending UN operation for southern Sudan. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has requested 10,000 peacekeepers for that operation.

Bush is asking Congress to approve $3.2 billion -- a $300 million increase from FY05 -- for his global AIDS and infectious diseases initiative of which, however, only $300 million is earmarked for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. The total figure is consistent with his plan to provide $15 billion over five years, but the amount for the Global Fund would be a significant cut from the 435 million dollars approved by Congress for FY05.

While the $300 million was the first time Bush had requested more than 200 million dollars for the Global Fund, Radelet said it will not be nearly enough for the agency to keep up with demand by the most-affected countries for support.

"My guess is that some members of Congress will try to increase it," said Radelet, who called the low request an "unwelcome development."

Radelet also stressed that the three billion dollar request for the MCA, which is run by a quasi-public institution called the Millennium Development Corporation (MDC), was disappointing in that Bush pledged at the Monterey summit that its 2006 budget would reach five billion dollars.

"He really has not delivered on this," said Radelet. "They really sat on their hands and did not get this program on line. I would be very surprized if Congress goes for any more than two billion (dollars), which would be unfortunate."

True to the spirit of his inaugural and state of the union speeches, Bush is requesting 10 million dollars for the UN International Democracy Fund, as well as a doubling of the government's contribution to the National Endowment of Democracy to 80 million dollars.