House Rejects Attempts to Cut Aid Package for Russia

The House rejected attempts Thursday to cut President Clinton’s aid package for Russia and the other former Soviet republics, voting overwhelmingly to approve a $13-billion foreign aid bill.

The appropriations bill, which sets foreign aid levels for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, contains $1.4 billion less than Clinton requested and represents another in a series of cuts that U.S. foreign assistance has undergone over the last several years.

Reflecting the need to cut the overall level of foreign assistance despite increases in aid to Russia, the spending measure was $1 billion leaner than a year ago.

The major winners were Russia, Israel and Egypt--the latter two because their aid remained unchanged from last year. Virtually every other country lost.

The bill, passed by a 309-111 vote, now goes to the Senate, where similar legislation is expected to be approved later this summer.

Under the new bill, Israel remains the largest recipient of U.S. aid, with $3 billion in economic and military assistance. Egypt would continue to receive $2.1 billion, while Russia and the other former Soviet republics would receive a total of $2.5 billion--most of it going to Russia.

Together, Israel, Egypt and Russia would receive nearly 60% of the entire foreign aid budget--a lopsided allocation that angered both lawmakers who had wanted to cut foreign aid even more this year and those who, in the aftermath of the Cold War, had hoped to refocus U.S. assistance on environmental, health and development problems in the Third World.

Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Md.), chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, argued that even with the new cuts this year, foreign aid levels are still too high in a time of budget cuts and tax increases at home.

But the bill’s supporters said that Congress had no choice but to honor the commitments that Clinton made to Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin, whose ability to continue on a reformist path would be seriously jeopardized if the West fails to make good on its pledges.

“To vote against helping them (the Russians) is to put our own future in danger and to allow the ghost of communism to have its last, cruel triumph over them--and us,” House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.) argued earlier in the debate.