Hatchet Victims

The Reagan Administration and Congress, in their eagerness to trim the budget and reduce the deficit, are attacking two defenseless targets with particular zeal and little thought of the long-term consequences. One is foreign aid, and the other is the family of international institutions under the United Nations umbrella.

At a time when Congress has chosen to construct the federal budget on the basis of mathematical formulas rather than political rectitude, it is not surprising to find among the victims of the hatchet some programs that are at once controversial and distant--their relevance to the lives and security of American citizens not always easily discerned.

As a result, Congress is close to final action on a foreign-aid appropriation of $12.9 billion for next year, a cut of 15% from this year’s actual budget authority--when all the evidence points to urgent need for expanded assistance, especially in Africa. Congress has cut $27 million from this year’s levels of funding for international organizations and programs even though past cuts already have put the United States $247 million in arrears on assessments that are treaty obligations--an amount equal to 60% of the total owed the world organization by its members.

The fundamental problem is that President Reagan and the leadership of Congress, both Democratic and Republican, have persuaded themselves, and perhaps the American people, that the United States can no longer afford major programs to help the poor of the world or to pay a fair share of the cost of the international organizations. The assumption is that those are luxury items to be financed on a casual basis if there is any loose change lying around. And, to allay any qualms, extravagant stories are circulated about waste in foreign aid, abuses of the United States in U.N. debates, failed peace efforts in international forums.

In the area of foreign aid the problem has been compounded under Reagan’s policies to increase the share for military and military-related aid at the expense of developmental assistance. And the whole of aid has been skewed by the decision to maintain the policy of previous administrations to increase each year, regardless of resources available for others, the billion-dollar-plus programs for Egypt and Israel. This has left nickels and dimes for most of the poorest of the poor.

Some say “So what?” After all, the United States gives more aid than anyone else, even if it now ranks at the bottom of the list of industrialized nations in terms of aid that it gives as a percentage of gross national product. But it does matter. Aid is an imperfect instrument. Sometimes it even fails in the basic humanitarian mission of maintaining life. But when it works well it sets in motion development, social and economic, that brings new hope for the recipient nations and helps create the expanding world economy that is also a key to sustained prosperity for the United States.

The United Nations stumbles too often, and the sophomoric rhetoric of some of its participants is enough to trigger avalanches of constituent mail for many members of Congress. But for all its imperfections it is the central and most effective instrument of the long and slow process of establishing a rule of law for relations among nations, for helping new nations to successful sovereignty, for replacing despair with hope among the most miserable of the economically deprived peoples. There simply is no substitute for it. The international organizations need repair and refinement, not bashing. And the fragile treaty commitments, built around them as elements of a still-developing international law, are a step toward a global rule of law that begs for American indulgence, patience and help, not for the defiance inherent in refusing to pay assessments.

There have been some encouraging actions on Capitol Hill. The Administration’s move to cut funding for UNICEF and the Child Survival Fund, both remarkably successful in reducing deaths among Third World children, has again been resisted and increased funding appropriated by the House committee. But international population programs are endangered both by the Administration’s moves to eliminate funding of the U.N. Fund for Population Activities, just as it earlier has eliminated funds for the highly effective International Planned Parenthood Federation, and by a House committee vote to reject an overall population funding increase request of the Administration for next year.

The funds for foreign aid, including international organizations, are a minuscule part of the federal budget. Through the last 40 years, however, they have come to symbolize the American commitment to create a better structure for international relations, to address the poverty and disease that cripple so many millions of people on the increasingly crowded globe. There has been an element of generosity in this, but basically it has been a realistic recognition of the interdependence of all nations, an appreciation that American prosperity is inseparable from the development of other nations, including those in the Third World.