White House Rebuffs Dole on Aid Plan : Budget: Senator wants to redirect 5% of U.S. funding from Israel and other nations to the East Bloc and Panama.

The White House reacted cooly today to a suggestion by Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole that some foreign aid now going to Israel and other major recipients be redirected to emerging democracies in Eastern Europe and Panama.

While acknowledging that competition for foreign aid will only grow stronger in the next budget year, White House Press Secretary Marlin Fitzwater was not prepared to condone a realignment of current priorities to meet new needs.

Fitzwater expressed reservations about a proposal by Dole (R-Kan.) that aid to the five biggest recipients--Israel, Egypt, the Philippines, Turkey and Pakistan--be trimmed to free funds for needier countries.

In a column for the New York Times, Dole said reallocation of current foreign aid commitments was the only “immediate answer” to the question of how to sustain progress toward democracy and free-market economies around the world.

Citing “changing priorities,” Dole noted that a 5% reduction in the amount now going to the five major recipients, which together consume more than two-thirds of the foreign aid budget, would make available about $330 million for Poland, Panama, Hungary and other countries “that under current allocations would not receive one penny of American aid.”

Without singling out Israel, which benefits from a strong lobby in the United States, Dole complained that “pressure groups” have led Congress to lock in large sums of aid to certain countries that might be better used elsewhere.

Fitzwater said Dole’s proposal itself raised worrisome concerns for the Administration about limiting “the prerogatives of the President in making foreign policy decisions and about our need to be flexible in terms of moving from one country to another where needs may arise on short notice.”