WD | United States
Show Me the Money Congress Giveth What the President Keeps Trying to Taketh Away BY ANNA GAWEL President Trump recently released his fiscal 2021 budget, but many of the drastic cuts he’s proposed aren’t likely to make it through Congress, which controls the federal purse strings.
E
very year since coming into office, President Trump has proposed significant cuts in funding for the State Department and USAID. And every year, Congress has batted down those proposals. This latest budget is likely to be no different. In his recently released $4.8 trillion budget request for the 2021 fiscal year, Trump proposed deep reductions in funding for almost every aspect of U.S. foreign aid and diplomacy. He asked Congress to fund the State Department and USAID at $40.8 billion — a 22% decrease from the $52.5 billion that was enacted the previous fiscal year. The sharp cuts to the international affairs budget are in line with the president’s efforts to slash domestic spending in other areas, including a nearly 27% cut to the Environmental Protection Agency and a 15% cut to the Housing and Urban Development Department, along with cuts to various safety-net programs such as Medicaid, food stamps, student loan assistance and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Other agencies, however, such as NASA and the Departments of Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs, would see increases, while defense spending would stay relatively flat at $740 billion. The president’s budget, though, is rarely a serious document. It is a blueprint of political priorities and a starting point of negotiations with Congress. And if history is any indication, many of President Trump’s cuts won’t materialize, especially when it comes to international affairs spending, which he has repeatedly tried — and failed — to curb. In his budget request to Congress for the 2020 fiscal year, for example, Trump proposed a 23% cut in international affairs spending, asking Congress to fund the State Department and USAID at $40 billion. Congress rejected that request and instead funded foreign operations at $55 billion. It’s a familiar pattern. For fiscal 2018, Trump sought a 28% cut in State/USAID funding, from $52.8 billion the previous fiscal year down to $37.6 billion. Instead, Congress wound up allocating $52.4 billion. Likewise, for fiscal 2019, Trump requested $37.8 billion. Instead, State and USAID got $56.1 billion.
EXERCISE IN FUTILITY?
Shortly after Trump announced his latest budget proposal, Democrats, who control the House, promptly dismissed it as dead on arrival. But many Republicans are equally opposed to drastic cuts to diplomacy and foreign aid. Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina flat-out told Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that “we’re not going to 4 | THE WASHINGTON DIPLOMAT | MARCH 2020
PHOTO: PIERRE BLACHÉ / PIXABAY
“
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle understand the seriousness of stable and carefully planned funding for American investments abroad, so they will likely ignore the president’s requests and craft a serious budget.
”
CONOR SAVOY, executive director of the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network
approve” the president’s cuts, calling them “insane” and “short-sighted.” “I don’t know who writes these things over in the White House, but they clearly don’t understand the value of soft power,” said Graham, normally a staunch Trump ally. Given the consistent bipartisan pushback, reporters asked State Department officials during a Feb. 10 briefing why the administration keeps putting out a budget it knows Congress will reject. State Department Director of Foreign Assistance Jim Richardson acknowledged that “Congress will always have a different view” and said the department is ready to work with lawmakers on the “long process” ahead. The State Department also notes that the president’s proposed reductions for international affairs spending are in line with his desire to restrain overall nondefense discretionary spending. Yet, despite the high likelihood that Trump’s proposed cuts won’t see the light of day, some experts say they already do damage by revealing how little value the president places on diplomacy, further eroding the already-battered morale at Foggy Bottom. In addition, while the cuts aren’t likely to be approved, they
“will nonetheless lead to significant disruptions and inefficiencies in the planning, obligation and implementation of foreign aid programs,” according to the Modernizing Foreign Assistance Network (MFAN), a D.C.-based advocacy coalition. The group argues that even the threat of cuts can be dangerous because “evidence shows that development assistance is most effective when funded at relatively stable levels and for multiple years,” it said in a Feb. 11 statement. “Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle understand the seriousness of stable and carefully planned funding for American investments abroad, so they will likely ignore the president’s requests and craft a serious budget,” Conor Savoy, MFAN’s executive director, said. “In the meantime, American development implementers are spending scarce time and energy planning out a budget scenario that will not happen.” But the fact that it probably won’t happen because Congress continues to thwart Trump’s efforts to downsize diplomacy has rankled the president. In August 2019, he ordered that all unspent foreign aid funds for fiscal 2019 — about $4 billion — be withheld, even though
Congress had ordered their disbursement. Trump relented after significant pushback from congressional Republicans and members of his staff. Trump’s determination to significantly cut foreign affairs funding reflects his wish that other countries and international organizations be more self-sufficient and less financially reliant on the United States, and that other developed countries shoulder more of the aid burden. Fiscal conservatives also argue that many State Department initiatives are wasteful and redundant, often funding pet projects with unproven track records. For instance, in its latest budget proposal, the administration cites various small-scale projects that it says serve no strategic purpose and are a waste of taxpayer money, including: $4,800 to send American artists to a poetry festival in Finland; $7,500 for a foreign student to attend Space Camp; and $10,000 to support the “Muppet Retrospectacle” in New Zealand. But diplomacy advocates counter that when looking at the bigger picture, the international affairs budget comprises only 1% of total federal spending — and that Americans get a lot of bang for their buck. “America’s diplomats are our first line
