The $52 billion FY2014 international affairs budget request is a small investment with big returns for the United States and the world, Secretary of State John Kerry said in congressional hearings last week. The request is the same amount Congress allocated in FY2013 and a four percent cut from FY2012. Kerry told members of Congress that the State Department and USAID are prepared to do more with less.
Sen. John Kerry will be questioned by his Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) colleagues this week during his confirmation hearing to become the next Secretary of State. My colleague Jenny Ottenhoff shared what she’d like to hear members ask Kerry, including a question on the future of US foreign aid. Turns out Sen.
Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) will join his fellow members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for a routine confirmation hearing on January 24, but this time he won’t be holding the gavel. Instead, as President Obama’s nominee to be the next secretary of state, Sen. Kerry will take questions from the committee on how he would carry out the Obama administration's foreign policy priorities.
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee gave a stamp of approval to two pieces of US aid reform legislation before heading out for pre-election recess this week.
This is a joint post with John Norris of the Center for American Progress.
Budget concerns will almost certainly put downward pressure on federal spending across a host of government programs for a number of years. Although some think it is almost heretical to point out the obvious, the international affairs budget will not be immune from this dynamic. In fact, international spending could take a disproportionate hit compared to domestic spending – despite the fact that discretionary international spending is a very small part of the overall budget puzzle.
International affairs, and more specifically foreign assistance, have rarely been popular budget items among the public or on Capitol Hill – despite consistently comprising only about 1 percent of the total federal budget. Even so, foreign aid and international engagement make good political targets for elected officials out on the stump. It is far easier to demonize foreign aid than to explain how relatively modest programs to improve living standards in the developing world have consistently proven to be in the national interest over the long-term.
“Can you help us PFG this country?” is not yet a common query heard throughout the U.S. government, but CGD had the opportunity to discover why “PFG-ing” a country could be the next phase in the evolution of U.S. development efforts.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will testify this week before four separate congressional committees on the FY13 president’s budget request for the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development. The hearings will likely run the gamut of U.S. priorities in national security and foreign policy (all through the lens of budget austerity) and can be expected to hone in on hot button issues like Afghanistan, the Arab spring, and family planning.
The President’s much anticipated 2013 budget was released yesterday. My initial reaction is that the request is a responsible one given the political dynamics of budget austerity. There are some good examples of better matching resources to objectives, although I still believe country allocations have not been scrubbed well enough.
Amanda Glassman and Nandini Oomman, here at CGD, have released two separate notes (here and here) on the Global Health Initiative (GHI). Amanda and Nandini, who both have deep backgrounds in global health issues, are critical of the GHI and cautious about its future. Both see health assistance, in all its many forms, as a fundamental development activity. Both knock the dysfunction of the current bureaucratic structure and lin