IMPENDING CUTS IMPERIL FOREIGN AID

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000504870039-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 8, 2012
• Sequence Number: 39
• Publication Date: February 28, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RD P90-00965R000504870039-9
WASHINGTON POST
28 January 1986
Impending Cuts Imperil Foreign Aid
U.S. May Be Unable to Carry Out Commitments, Rep. Fascell Says
By Joanne Omang
Waahingeo" rod sae writer
Cuts required in U.S. foreign aid
spending; by the Gramm-Rudman-
Hollings budget-balancing law will
make it "extremely difficult and in
some cases impossible" to carry out
U.S. foreign policy commitments,
the chairman of the House Foreign
Affairs Committee said yesterday.
Rep. Dante B. Fascell (D-Fla.)
said Congress might have to elim-
inate so-called economic support
funds (ESF) for all countries except
Israel, Egypt and the five "base
'rights" nations where there are
agreements allowing U.S. military
bases in exchange for aid: Turkey,
the Philippines, Kenya, Somalia and
Portugal:
"That would be drastic, yes, but
we're not foreclosing any possibil-
ities of trying to meet the target,"
Fascell said in an interview.
The U.S. share of funding for the
United Nations, now 25 percent of
the U.N. budget, is in arrears $35
million for December 1985 and will
not be fully paid this year because
of Gramm-Rudman-Hollings, Fas-
cell said. "That will be one of the
foreign policy commitments we
wouldn't be able to keep," he said.
In addition, supplementary fund-
ing requests related to foreign pol-
icy in fiscal 1986 would be "very
difficult, maybe impossible" to pass,
Fascell said. Those are expected to
include a $100 million request for
military and humanitarian aid to the
"contra" rebels, or counterrevolu-
tionaries, fighting Nicaragua and a
$700 million request to launch a
five-year, $5.4 billion program of
security improvements to U.S. em-
bassies and consulates abroad.
Documents prepared by Fascell's
staff show that while foreign aid is 2
percent of the federal budget, it will
be required to provide 15 percent
of non-defense reductions under
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings because
large portions of the budget are
exempted from the deficit-reduc-
tion measure. The papers list the
U.N. and economic support funding
cuts among more than a dozen op-
tions for saving $1 billion this year
and $4 billion in fiscal 1987, as
Gramm-Rudman-Hollings requires.
Economic support fund grants
would decline from $3.7 billion ap-
propriated this year to $2.6 billion
under the cuts mandated for fiscal
1987, the report said. "Assuming
full funding for Egypt. Israel and
base rights countries ... there
would be no money left for Central
and Latin America, Africa and other
Middle East and Asian countries.
More than 40 countries would lose
ESF," the report said.
Similar commitments in the mil-
itary assistance program of grants
would take up to $415 million of a
$560 million total in fiscal 1987,
",leaving only $145 million for the
rest of the world," the document
said. All but $625 million of the
$3.7 billion foreign military sales
credit program would go to Israel
and Egypt in 1987, leaving even
some of the base rights countries
unfunded, it continued.
Authorizations for the State De-
partment, U.S. Information Agency
and the Board for International
Broadcasting (Radio Liberty, Radio
Marti and Radio Free Europe) are
scheduled to absorb another total
cut of $1 billion by October, the
documents said.
Other money-saving options pro-
pose to eliminate the $1.1 billion
Export-Import Bank, sell foreign
military sales loans to the private
sector, end foreign military conces-
sionary sales, end the $782 million
military assistance grant program,
increase the $35 passport fee and
defer Agency for International De-
velopment payments to any nation
with large amounts of unused aid
already "in the pipeline."
STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/02/08: CIA-RDP90-00965R000504870039-9