Hullabaloo

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

 
Cutting the Important Stuff
by David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")

Given the austerity measures being enacted domestically, it only makes sense that our government is taking a look at the massive and pointless expenditures being made abroad. Of course, if you think that refers to military adventures overseas, think again. Our fine stewards are instead looking to cut things like aid to starving children in Africa and help for tsunami victims. The New York Times has the details:

America’s budget crisis at home is forcing the first significant cuts in overseas aid in nearly two decades, a retrenchment that officials and advocates say reflects the country’s diminishing ability to influence the world. As lawmakers scramble to trim the swelling national debt, both the Republican-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate have proposed slashing financing for the State Department and its related aid agencies at a time of desperate humanitarian crises and uncertain political developments. The proposals have raised the specter of deep cuts in food and medicine for Africa, in relief for disaster-affected places like Pakistan and Japan, in political and economic assistance for the new democracies of the Middle East, and even for the Peace Corps.

The financial crunch threatens to undermine a foreign policy described as “smart power” by President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, one that emphasizes diplomacy and development as a complement to American military power. It also would begin to reverse the increase in foreign aid that President George W. Bush supported after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as part of an effort to combat the roots of extremism and anti-American sentiment, especially in the most troubled countries.

Given the relatively small foreign aid budget — it accounts for 1 percent of federal spending over all — the effect of the cuts could be disproportional.

Props to the Times for mentioning the salient point: that cutting these programs will make almost zero difference to the national budget. One could wish that point had been made somewhere north of the 4th paragraph, but late is better than never. Meanwhile, America's loudly proclaimed commitment to democracy around the world is starting to become a joke:

The State Department already has scaled back plans to open more consulates in Iraq, for example. The spending trend has also constrained support for Tunisia and Egypt, where autocratic leaders were overthrown in popular uprisings. While many have called for giving aid to these countries on the scale of the Marshall Plan that helped rebuild European democracies after World War II, the administration has been able to propose only relatively modest investments and loans, and even those have stalled in Congress.

“There is a democratic awakening in places that have never dreamed of democracy,” Mrs. Clinton said on Friday. “And it is unfortunate that it’s happening at a historic time when our own government is facing so many serious economic challenges, because there’s no way to have a Marshall Plan for the Middle East and North Africa.”

One could say that this move is simply about putting the priorities of the American People first. After all, polling shows that the public overwhelmingly wants to cut foreign aid. There is a massive gulf in the difference between what Americans think should be cut, and what America actually spends its money on, per a 2010 poll conducted on behalf of the The Economist:



The red bars indicate actual federal expenditures. The blue bars indicate the percentage of those polled preferring cuts to that particular budget item.

A quick glance at the chart shows the obvious: everyone wants to cut foreign aid, despite the fact that it represents an insignificant outlay in the federal budget.

And yet, the graph shows other curious things, too: the fact that very few people want cuts to Medicare, Social Security and aid to the poor, either. And yet, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have spent much of the past year arguing for just that, despite much greater support for cuts to other budget items that already received insignificant funding. If cutting foreign aid spending is a bipartisan move to please the American voter, then one would expect that bipartisan consensus would coalesce around similarly popular moves. But, of course, it doesn't.

The fact is when the United States spends $2 billion a week in Afghanistan and thinks nothing of lobbing hundreds of cruise missiles at $1.41 million a pop to kill people, cutting a few billion dollars a year from the budget for caring for the sick, starving and dispossessed is more than just cruel. It's plain stupid. The money spent on foreign aid buys a lot of goodwill around the world, despite widespread anger at American foreign policy in other regards. Cutting that funding is penny-wise and pound-foolish.

As the New York Times concludes:

Jeremy Konyndyk, the director of policy and advocacy for the international aid group Mercy Corps, said that a retrenchment in aid could gravely erode not only America’s influence but also its moral standing as a generous nation in times of crises.

“The amount of money the U.S. has or doesn’t have doesn’t really rise or fall on the foreign aid budget,” he said in a telephone interview from Nairobi, Kenya, where he was overseeing relief to the famine in the Horn of Africa. “The budget impact is negligible. The impact around the world is enormous.”

Our government is run by a band of short-sighted lunatics.

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thereisnospoon 10/04/2011 07:30:00 AM |