The State Department may be facing its toughest budget
season ever, but there are still plenty of lawmakers who are ready to defend
funding for diplomacy and development, according to Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides.
Congress rejected, by a 20 to 78 vote, an
attempt by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)
last week to fund $6.9 billion in emergency disaster relief by taking the money
out of the State Department's foreign assistance budget. Sens. John Kerry (D-MA), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Lindsey
Graham (R-SC) all came to the State Department's defense.
"I think getting 78 votes against it was pretty darn good,"
Nides told The Cable in an interview.
"We have bipartisan support. Clearly the great majority of the Senate thought
it was not the right thing to do... Even in difficult times, people don't want to
do things that would dramatically impact our national security."
Graham responded to Paul and defended foreign aid funding in
a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations Sept. 16. Graham explained how he
defends foreign aid to the man on the street, a man he called "Bubba."
"Here's what I'd tell ‘Bubba,' when
he asked," Graham said. "I'd say, listen, I got it, pal. We're not going to
write any more checks to dictators and let them waste your money. We're just
not going to through money. But less than 1 percent of what we spend at the
federal level is on foreign assistance."
Nides said that Graham has been "enormously helpful" in
defending foreign assistance. "He fundamentally believes that the funding of
State Department and USAID is critical to our national security. His argument
is not that we should be funding these things just based on humanitarian grounds,
as important as that may be."
The chairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Africa
subcommittee, Sens. Chris Coons (D-DE)
and Johnny Isakson (R-GA) have also
emerged as advocates for foreign assistance funding. In
a Sept. 19 letter to the chairs of the Senate Appropriations State and
Foreign ops subcommittee, obtained by The
Cable, they defended funding for development assistance and the USAID
operations accounts, both of which are slashed in the House version of next
year's appropriations bill.
"Development assistance is a reflection of our moral
imperative to assist others in need, a critical demonstration of American
leadership in the world," they wrote. "We are keenly aware of the budgetary
pressures facing Congress... we are concerned that reductions to development
assistance will undermine U.S. priorities in Africa and throughout the
developing world."
Nides said that the House version of the State and Foreign
Ops appropriations bill, which would give $39.6 billion in fiscal 2012 to
international affairs funding, "would have dramatic impact on the operations of
the State Department." The Senate version, which would provide about $44.6
billion, is "more reasonable," he said.
Nides said that the State Department and USAID have
succeeded in being added to the national security discussion -- but that also
places diplomacy and development funding in competition with national security
accounts, including the defense budget.
"You've got to fund defense, but not at the cost of
depleting your diplomacy and development. That would be shortsighted," he said.
The supercommittee that is working on discretionary budget
cuts this fall must deal with caps on "security" spending, which bundles
defense, diplomacy, and development funding into one big pool of money. And
that could leave the U.S. diplomatic corps as the odd man out.
The State Department does have one
very powerful friend who sits on that committee, Senate Foreign Relations
Committee chairman John Kerry
(D-MA). So does Nides think Kerry will use his supercommittee perch to come to
State's defense?
"My assumption is that he'll do whatever he can to be
supportive, but first and foremost he's going to have to do what's in the best
interest of the American people," said Nides. "I think he will determine that
that includes protecting our national security, and that includes funding for State
and USAID."
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