A House GOP plan to carve State Department spending out of the sacrosanct pool of “security” appropriations, and lump it in with “non-security” appropriations could upend the Obama administration’s strategy in Iraq, says the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“I’m not sure the House folks [considered] it runs flat into our strategy in Iraq,” Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) told me Thursday after an evening vote.
The House took its first step in executing the plan Thursday, when Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan introduced spending limits that would leave the State Department with $9.7 billion — or 17 percent — less than Obama requested.
The timing couldn’t be worse.
As Levin noted, the cuts will come just as State Department spending needs to be ratcheted upward, to cover the added cost to State of setting up shop in Iraq as the military transitions out.
“We had the ambassador to Iraq today, Mr. Jeffrey, saying that if we’re going to have the shift from a military presence downward, shifted over to the State Department, to add consulates, to add more contractors to protect consulates, and to stick to this December date for the departure of all of our troops, his estimate was that the State Department to succeed to facilitate that shift and to have our troops move out of there would probably double the State Department budget,” Levin added. “That would be the largest single part of the State Department budget.”
It’s also a huge priority for the government as a whole, which means that State would have to dramatically cut back on lower-priority foreign assistance programs.
Unless the House backs off this plan — which would be procedurally tricky — the Senate will have to push back hard. Fortunately for the Obama administration, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee thinks it’s this is a terrible idea.
“I’m distressed that there is not enough recognition of the role the State Department is playing,” Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) told Politico‘s David Rogers. “It’s a new leadership group, and they are attempting to express that they are different and it’s a different time. And they’re apparently succeeding.”
Rogers listed ways the shrinking and shifting of the foreign aid budget could cripple key policy initiatives.
Refugee assistance, for example, already faces the threat of being cut in half, from $1.685 billion in 2010 to $823 million in 2008. International narcotics could lose nearly $1 billion, a two-thirds reduction.
Most vulnerable are initiatives that hardly existed in 2008 but have since grown to address new issues, like climate change or the high price of food on world markets. The same applies to the estimated 2,170 foreign and civil service personnel added since 2008, and among global health accounts, maternal and child health programs are in similar straits, having grown substantially since 2008.
Perhaps the most sensitive issue is how to handle one Bush legacy: the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief [PEPFAR], under which the U.S. has made long-term commitments to help supply antiretroviral drugs to patients in Africa…. Turning back the clock to 2008 would mean State’s PEPFAR budget would be cut to $4.6 billion — a 14 percent reduction from the estimated $5.35 billion provided in 2010.
If Republicans insist on immediate budget cuts, similar problems will pop up across the government. But during the Bush years, Republican appropriators would never have refused a national security-related appropriations request from the White House. Under Obama, they’ve changed their posture.
