Redistributing the Largesse : U.S. Foreign-Aid Stinginess Sparks Debate

Sen. Robert Dole (R-Kan.) has focused the attention of the nation on its skewed foreign-aid program with his proposal for a redistribution of existing funds, a timely and useful exercise.

The basic problem is that the United States is under-funding foreign assistance. When aid is measured as a percentage of gross national product, the American contribution ranks 17th among the 18 industrialized donor democracies, about one-fifth of 1% of GNP. Only Austria does less. The stinginess has had at least one positive result, however: It has inspired the debate over aid.

Congress usually has justified foreign aid as a vehicle to fight communism and win friends. Members of Congress have been quick to punish nations deemed unfriendly or too susceptible to Moscow’s influence, regardless of the impact on their economic development. But recent events in the Soviet Union have reduced the emphasis on fighting communism. And now just about everybody except Cuba, Libya and Iran is seen as America’s friend. So Congress is pushing ahead of President Bush to feed funds to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, to Nicaragua, now redeemed by free elections, and to Panama, now purged by the U.S. invasion.

But Congress also has, more or less, accepted the President’s determination not to increase taxes. So the Pentagon budget is being eyed hungrily. The peace dividend is proving to be an uncertain source as a search is conducted to find $300 million for Nicaragua, $500 million for Panama and $70 million for the reception of 27,000 additional refugees, most of them from the Soviet Union. Congress now faces the reality that defense cuts are not likely to cover immediate needs in Eastern Europe. And that realization has brought Congress to face the complex and painful task of doing what Dole proposed in the first place: reallocating the basic foreign-aid budget.

Most of the sensitivity to reallocation stems from the fact that Israel is the dominant, overwhelming consumer of aid, and aid to Israel is reinforced by one of the strongest lobbies in Washington. There is no way to make a judicious reallocation without taking some of the $3 billion proposed for Israel, and from the four other principal aid beneficiaries: $2.3 billion for Egypt and $1.6 billion divided among Turkey, Pakistan and the Philippines. Together, funds for those five nations constitute almost half the total military and economic-assistance budget, leaving relatively little for impoverished nations.

There is no question about the importance of the five principal aid recipients to the United States. In the absence of additional funds, however, the concentration of aid on them neglects nations that also have compelling problems of importance to the United States. Neglect of the debt problem plaguing Latin America and Africa, for example, handicaps economies that hold a high potential as future major commercial customers of the United States. Reductions in assistance for population programs and for agricultural research serve to raise the risks of famine as well as political disorder. Inadequate funding of humanitarian programs, such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, blemishes the traditional American commitment to help alleviate suffering.

In Bush’s 1991 budget, foreign assistance amounts to only 1.3% of the total. And the prospects for a more responsible response on aid from the United States is diminished by the preoccupation with the budget deficit. The deficit is a reality that cannot be cured without increased taxes combined with stringent spending controls on programs. As long as the taxes are resisted, as they are so strenuously by President Bush, the programs will be penalized without regard to their merits or the long-term consequences.