|
| http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB08Ak01.html
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Despite his administration's growing concerns about preventing the
collapse of states in strategic parts of the world, US President George W Bush
has proposed cuts in development and disaster assistance while increasing the
defense budget by almost 7%.
Under his 2007 budget request submitted to Congress on Monday, Pentagon spending
next year would rise to some US$440 billion, not including another $120 billion
that the administration is expected to ask for as a supplemental appropriation
to fund US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through September, when
fiscal 2006 ends.
By contrast, Bush's proposed 2007 foreign-aid request will remain roughly the
same as last year's at some $24 billion, the equivalent of what Washington
spends in less than five months in Iraq.
Moreover, the president is calling for a nearly 20% cut in development aid -
from roughly $1.5 billion $1.26 billion in development aid - and similar cuts in
disaster assistance and child-survival and health programs.
"This administration has said there are three components to national security -
diplomacy, defense and development," said Mohammad Akhter, president of
InterAction, a coalition of some 160 US non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
active in developing countries. "We see that diplomacy and defense are well
taken care of, but development is the weakest tool in our kit. Yet that's where
our long-term security lies."
While reducing aid in those areas, however, Bush asked for major increases in
his two signature aid programs: the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA), which
was set up to reward "good performers" among poor countries, and his
three-year-old PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief ), to combat
AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria - most of which is to be spent in 14 selected
countries in Africa and the Caribbean as well as Vietnam.
He is asking for a total of $4 billion for the latter, including only $300
million for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria - a
multilateral agency especially favored by AIDS activists who oppose US
conditions on the aid - and $3 billion for the MCA, an increase of $1.25 billion
from the current level.
While Congress has generally approved the administration's AIDS-related
requests, however, it has not hesitated to slash requests for the MCA, in large
part because the fund has been very slow to qualify eligible countries for the
assistance.
"Historical precedent suggests that the Millennium Development Corporation
[which administers the MCA] may not come out with the funding requested," noted
Stewart Patrick, a research fellow at the Center for Global Development. He also
said Congress was likely to increase aid for child survival, as it has in the
past.
The defense and foreign-aid requests were contained in a proposed 2007 budget
that totals $2.7 trillion, an increase of 2.3% over the current fiscal year.
Despite the increase, the federal deficit, if approved, would decline from this
year's current estimate of a record $423 billion to $354 billion, according to
the administration. However, its deficit forecasts have consistently proven
over-optimistic.
With such a large increase in proposed Pentagon (Defense Department) spending,
Bush's 2007 budget calls for either holding the line or reducing spending in
social and education programs, and even in community policing. In what could
prove especially controversial in an election year, he is also calling for cuts
in anticipated spending for Medicare, a popular health insurance program for
elderly and disabled people.
Bush combined the release of his budget proposal with a new appeal to make
permanent tax cuts on corporations and the wealthy that were enacted during his
first term. In a Washington Post column published Sunday, Bush's former top
economic adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, warned that tax increases were inevitable
unless the budget and the size of the government were reduced.
With the Pentagon budget trajectory still headed upward, however, such a
prospect looks increasingly doubtful. On Friday, the Defense Department released
its latest Quadrennial Defense Report (QDR), which, while rejecting calls to
increase the size of its over-stretched ground forces in the army and Marines,
urged major increases in its special operations forces, which are particularly
costly to train and equip.
Also as part of its "war on terror", which the Pentagon has renamed "the long
war", it is pushing full speed ahead on expensive new weapons systems that can
intimidate potential rivals, such as China or Russia.
"Like the QDR, the fiscal 2007 budget reflects the department's continuum of
change as we defend our nation, engage in the long war against terrorist
extremism and prepare for future potential adversaries," Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld said on Monday.
The proposed foreign-aid bill also suggested continuity with the recent past
despite Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's recent call for major changes in
the ways Washington conducts its business overseas, a process she called
"transformational diplomacy".
Apart from Bush's pet anti-AIDS and MCA programs, the new foreign-aid bill calls
for a 70% increase in anti-drug spending, to some $1.5 billion worldwide. Much
of that will be spent in Afghanistan which, since the ouster of the Taliban in
late 2001, has become by far the world's biggest source of opium and heroin.
"The drug war comes out a real winner in the budget allocation," Patrick said.
He also expressed disappointment that development and disaster-aid programs,
which are designed to promote good governance and help the poorest and most
vulnerable sectors in countries that risk becoming "failed states", fared
relatively poorly in the budget request compared to the MCA, which is targeted
exclusively on countries that perform well in both areas.
"It reaffirms the fears of a lot of folks that the creation of these signature
programs, particularly PEPFAR and MCC, will lead to a gradual decrease in some
of the other accounts that are critical for righting poverty and advancing
development," he added.
The point was echoed by InterAction's Akhter. "It doesn't really make any sense
to cut that component because, until you provide development assistance and
health, people won't arrive at a point where they can take advantage of the
MCA," he said.
State Department officials said some of the declines in the child-survival and
health accounts will be made up in the expanded PEFAR program. They also said
funding for malaria prevention would increase significantly under the proposed
budget.
Aside from changes in the overall spending on development and disaster aid and
counter-drug assistance, most of the levels to both specific countries and
multilateral programs, including the United Nations and peacekeeping operations,
are similar to those approved by Congress for 2006.
Economic aid to Central and Eastern Europe, including parts of the former Soviet
Union, would decline. On the other hand, State Department-administered economic
assistance for Iraq, previously part of an $18 billion package controlled by the
Pentagon, will skyrocket from just $60 million this year to nearly $500 million
in 2007. Substantial increases in economic aid are planned for Afghanistan,
Sudan and Indonesia.
Some $6.2 billion altogether is earmarked for countries that are considered key
strategic allies in the "war on terror".
Military aid and sales overseen by the State Department - nearly $5 billion -
would remain roughly the same, with the bulk going to Washington's two biggest
economic and military aid recipients, Israel and Egypt.
Patrick said he was surprised the budget did not feature stronger support for
democracy promotion and other political and institutional initiatives designed
to strengthen states and make them more responsive to its citizens, particularly
given the administration's recent rhetoric.
"A main premise of Rice's transformational diplomacy is that the US needs to
marshal all of its resources to advance democracy and good governance in weak
and failing states," he said. "But it's not clear how this budget request
addresses the challenge."
A nearly $100 million Democracy Fund established by Congress last year will be
parceled out to other existing programs under Bush's proposal, while mainly
nominal increases are planned for Middle East democratization initiatives, the
National Endowment for Democracy, and even public diplomacy.
(Inter Press Service)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HB08Ak01.html
Alan
"Can't you see we're still here,
Can't you see we're still here,
Singing loud; Singing clear,
We shall not go under,
We're still here."
Nemesis Peace Centre
http://www.veloceraptor.free-online.../protector.html
Abuse of Women and Children
http://theoriginalfirebird.blogspot.com/
Nemesis News
http://lordcerneabbas.blogspot.com/
Absolute Anarchy
http://lordcerneabbastoo.blogspot.com/
|
|