Word: foreign-aid
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...American foreign-aid efforts have shifted dramatically during the past decade. Washington, once a key source of development assistance, now stresses military rather than humanitarian help. The largest U.S.-aid recipients last year were Israel ($3 billion) and Egypt ($2 billion), and more than half of that assistance was in the form of weapons and other defense hardware. Not a single African country south of the Sahara was among the top-ten American-aid recipients. "We're basically out of the development business," says Charles William Maynes, editor of Foreign Policy magazine. "In the long run, that is unwise...
...Foreign-aid supporters argue that the West has little choice but to continue sharing its largesse with less fortunate nations. Without assistance, "this would be a less caring and compassionate world," says Representative Stephen Solarz of New York, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. "These agencies embody the consciences of the countries that they come from." Yet at a time when government budgets everywhere are strained, political leaders demand more than ever that foreign aid be wisely given and effectively used...
...Some five hours later the House of Representatives voted, 203 to 197, in favor of $200 million in emergency aid to her fledgling government. The vote, admitted Democrat Gerald Kleczka of Wisconsin, amounted to "legislating with our hearts instead of our heads." Indeed, the measure only added to a foreign-aid budget that is already likely to be deeply slashed by the Gramm-Rudman budget-balancing mechanism. The bill is unlikely to pass the Senate...
That view was challenged by Democratic Congressman Michael Barnes, chairman of the key House subcommittee on aid to Latin America. "The Administration is going to have a very tough fight on its hands on lethal aid," he said. He noted that the nations involved in the Contadora process (Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Panama) have renewed their efforts to seek a regional solution to the conflict in Nicaragua. At the same time, the Gramm- Rudman deficit-reduction plan will require cutbacks in foreign-aid appropriations; any increase to the contras could be at the expense of other nations...
...foreign-aid budget of about $15 billion, the sum is minuscule, a mere $14 million. But the Administration's efforts to persuade Congress to support the contras in Nicaragua is turning into a major foreign policy test. The Administration stepped up its pressure on Congress last week. An unidentified Administration official hinted that if the funds were not provided directly, aid to the anti-Sandinista rebels might be supplied by unnamed Asian countries. He did not explain whether those countries would simply pass along U.S. money or use their own funds to help the contras. Congress might forbid any rerouting...