As budget negotiations continue and gain urgency by the looming debt ceiling breech possible by early August, the foreign aid budget has become a popular, and populist, target for the budget ax.
Rarely does a Congressional town hall meeting pass without a frustrated constituent calling for cuts in foreign aid as a solution to the country’s budget woes. In reality, foreign aid is only a small fraction of federal spending, but given the perception that most Americans have that the sum spent on foreign aid is staggering, it may be too juicy of a target to pass up. Some are concerned that severe cuts to foreign aid will result in compromising national security and/or leaving thousands of the world’s children without the assistance that provides food and medicine.
According to OMB, in FY’11 foreign aid spending was about $41 billion of a total budget of over $3.8 trillion – slightly more than 1%. The House Republican budget for FY’12 seeks to cut it by around 29% or by $12 billion. Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan points out that in the last ten years, resources for international programs have grown by 167%. The impact of cuts will be painful for those who hope to receive funding. But, will US national security or humanitarian goals really be harmed as a result?
There is a certain amount of waste, redundancy and inefficiency in foreign assistance programs. We should be able to reduce them and still provide effective results but so far, we’ve been unwilling or unable to do so. The reasons include the steady demise of USAID over the last quarter century and the rise of more expensive for profit aid providers and NGOs that have in many ways replaced the once proud Agency. But, don’t expect USAID to stop contracting out and to rebuild its in-house expertise anytime soon. It has steadily lost the confidence of all but its most ardent supporters. Many of its programs have already migrated elsewhere – to the State Department, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, HHS and the Pentagon. Given the realities of our government’s fiscal meltdown, these programs – along with most others – will have to be cut, but the wide dispersal of foreign aid programs will help to protect them from cuts as severe as House Republicans support.