President Barack
Obama announced $2 billion in new aid to Egypt in his May 19 speech on the
Middle East, but top appropriators in the House said on Monday that they don't
support giving the money to any government that includes the Muslim Brotherhood.
House Appropriations State and Foreign Ops
subcommittee chairwoman Kay Granger
(R-TX) and ranking Democrat Nita Lowey (D-NY)
spoke at a Monday afternoon panel at the AIPAC policy conference in Washington.
Asked by The Cable if they supported
Obama's new aid initiative to Egypt, especially if the Muslim Brotherhood sees increased power as part of an elected government, Granger said, "The
answer for me is no. I don't approve of it."
The crowd erupted in applause.
"Who is the new Egyptian government? We don't know.
That's the problem," Granger went on.
"Because it was a bottom-up uprising, we don't have
the organization, we don't have the parties, we don't have what it takes to win
an election. The Muslim Brotherhood does, because they've been there so long.
So they have the opportunity to take a much larger position in the government
that they had before," she said. "We have got to watch it, and we have to be
very, very careful about giving over money to a government, and we don't know
what that government is."
The issue of foreign assistance to Egypt was part of
a larger discussion about funding emerging democracies that include elements
hostile to U.S. interests. Granger and Lowey, for example, promised that no U.S.
money would go to a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas.
Lowey said that she supported using the money to
build Egyptian democracy, but emphasized that Congress was not going to
appropriate it and Obama would have to find it somewhere else.
In his May 19 speech, Obama promised to relieve $1
billion of Egypt's debt, and also guarantee another $1 billion in loans that he
said is needed "to finance infrastructure and job creation."
"We are not going to appropriate this money to the
Egyptian government," said Lowey. "We are currently giving them billions of
dollars in military aid and we're going to have to see about that as well," she
said.
"That is not new money. That money is coming from
multilateral banks, money that's been appropriated... it's not just U.S.," she
said. "For the sake of the other cuts in the budget, we don't want it to be new
money."
On May 18, a senior administration official provided
details of the funding plan, which called for the United States to provide Egypt
with the equivalent of $2 billion over several years, as well as billions more
from international institutions.
"We anticipate that the debt swap, both relief of debt and the investments that would ensue, would amount to roughly a billion over a few years and that the loan guarantees would support roughly an additional billion," the official said. "There will be additional financing coming from the multilateral development banks as well, several billion dollars."
As for the overall funding picture for foreign aid, Lowey said that appropriators are expecting a $5 billion cut from the president's request in 2012.
Granger criticized the cuts made in the 2011 budget.
"It was a big mistake that they cut foreign
operations," she said. "It is going to be a very, very tough year."
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