Smart Power and Dumb Budgeting (Updated) By Michael B. Kraft SMART POWER AND DUMB BUDGETING (UPDATED) Options

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Smart Power and Dumb Budgeting (Updated)

By Michael B. Kraft


SMART POWER AND DUMB BUDGETING (UPDATED)

(The following updates the posting of March 27)

As the Obama Administration's budget wends its way through Congress the full Senate yesterday approved an amendment to restore the $4 billion the Budget Committee made in the foreign affairs budget that includes funds for the committee stage.

Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) , chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana), the senior Republican, sponsored the amendment, which was approved by unanimous consent. A large number of non-government organizations weighed in to lobby for the amendment.

“Smart Power” is the current buzzword for the best way to counter a wide variety of national security threats, but dumb budgeting procedures remain a major obstacle.

The House of Representatives already is slicing away at the Obama administration’s Foreign Affairs Fiscal Year 2010 budget that proposes increases in foreign assistance programs to improve economic and social conditions in countries that are breeding grounds for violence and terrorism.

The House Budget Committee last Wednesday recommended a budget that would cut $5.5 billion from the administration’s $53.8 billion request. The Senate Budget Committee followed the next day by making slightly smaller cuts-- $4 billion less.

While these cuts were made from a request that was initially a $5.8 billion 13.6% increase from the FY 2009 levels, this does not reflect the whole picture according to Dr. Gordon Adams, a former associate OMB director for national security and international affairs who is now a fellow at the Henry L. Stimson Center. He said that if the second FY 2009 supplemental is enacted by Congress, the overall 2010 budget for State, USAID and foreign affairs agencies as proposed by the House Committee would end up a billion dollars lower than in 2009.

Of course the Senate and House versions have to be worked out in the Senate House Conference Committees. It is far from certain that the Senate position will prevail. And then the Appropriations Committees, which approve the actual spending, will have their own say and cuts often are made during this process.

This is at a time when virtually the entire foreign affairs establishment, led by Defense Secretary Robert Gates with his November 26, 2007 speech, is calling for allocating more resources for “smart power” foreign assistance and civil affairs activities in Afghanistan, Iraq and other trouble spots. He and many military men have said that that the military cannot do the job alone.

President Obama, in announcing his Afghanistan policy last Friday, said the administration planned to send hundreds of additional civilian officials and Foreign Service Officers to Afghanistan along with 4,000 more troops to help train Afghan military and police.l

See last Friday's posting for more details.

April 2, 2009 01:38 PM Link