Foreign Aid and Gramm-Rudman
Article Summary and Author Biography
US budgetary pressures caused by the Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction legislation necessitate serious analysis of how US interests in developing countries can be advanced when resources are scarce. The recent growth in security and military assistance, at the expense of economic, has created an un-affordable imbalance. Aid programmes need to be re-focused in order to concentrate on global growth, the alleviation of poverty, and the promotion of social equity.
John W. Sewell is President, and Christine E. Contee is a Fellow, at the Overseas Development Council in Washington, D.C.
The current U.S. foreign aid program has outlived its time. The developing world has changed drastically since the principles for the present program were formulated, beginning in the 1950s. As currently structured, the American aid program is no longer congruent with the multiplicity of interests that the United States has in the countries of the Third World.
The ongoing debate over the budget deficit and the spending ceilings of the Gramm-Rudman deficit reduction legislation has sharpened conflict among decision-makers over the grab bag of programs in the international affairs account of the federal budget. Cuts in some specific aid programs ranging from 10 to 50 percent have already been made in an effort to enforce spending ceilings. The question is whether these continuing budgetary pressures will force Congress and the Reagan Administration to take a serious look at how American interests in the developing countries have changed, and how these interests can be advanced in a time when resources are scarce.
Such an examination is long overdue. The foreign aid programs that dominate the international affairs budget had their origins in the desire to blunt Soviet expansionism while promoting American economic interests abroad and improving the well-being of the world’s poor majority. These goals have existed in uneasy partnership, receiving varying priority through successive administrations. Beginning in the late 1960s however, increasing disagreement over the goals of the aid program resulted in frequent political stalemate. In recent years, Congress and the executive branch have repeatedly failed to agree on programs, and ad hoc funding of U.S. aid through continuing resolutions rather than new legislation has become common.
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