The Politics of Incoherence: Congress and Foreign Policy Spending Posted by Gordon Adams

I have been making the argument in these blogs that we need to consider all the instruments of statecraft, balance their funding, and operate them in an integral way for the US to have an effective national security strategy. Yesterday I was hard on the administration for failing to do so, both because defense planning has abandoned discipline to the false comfort of supplementals, and because the budget for diplomacy and foreign assistance lacks a sense of strategic integration.

I want to give equal time to the Congress, however, for making an integrated and strategic view of national security resources virtually impossible. We have a classic case of this coming into view this week. Both the House and the Senate are rushing to produce an overall budget plan that is different from the President’s. They are moved by broader considerations than national security, of course; principally the growing sense among Republicans that federal spending is out of control and the party that was once the party of fiscal conservatism is going to pay for that profligate deficits next November.

But this rush to prove fiscal integrity is going to give major heartburn to anyone who feels that spending on diplomacy and foreign assistance ought to be an integral part of our national security strategy. The Budget Committees intend to cut federal spending, especially “domestic spending.” Most of it is, indeed, domestic, but Sen. Judd Gregg’s committee has reported a resolution that would include a cut of $2 b. from the President’s $35 b. request for “international affairs.” The full Senate will vote on this proposal when it takes up the full budget resolution this Thursday.

The House has not yet acted on the budget, but the work of the Republican Study Committee in the House may be a harbinger. It has proposed an alternative federal budget that would cut international affairs $6.5 b., in part by eliminating funds for the international development banks, closing down AID, cutting peacekeeping funds by nearly 50%, and doing away with the Millennium Challenge accounts.

Congress’ problem with international affairs is both political and institutional. Many members of Congress are contemptuous of “foreign aid.” In a late night session negotiating an omnibus appropriations bill back in 1995, I remember the chair of one of the two Foreign Operations appropriations subcommittees announcing: “I’m not going to be the first chair of this subcommittee to increase in foreign aid.” Basically, this reflects the reality that diplomacy and foreign assistance do not have significant support in the “back yards” of America

Congress’ other problem is structural. During the fifteen years of deficit reduction from 1995-2000, international affairs spending was generally lumped together with domestic spending when deficit targets were considered. Being generally unpopular, international affairs became a stepchild of the budget process. When non-defense discretionary spending (the part of the budget the appropriators consider) was whacked to meet a target, international affairs was included, and cut at least proportionately. Defense was usually held separate – as defense discretionary spending – and more protected from cuts.

It’s happening again this year, even though the budget caps are technically gone; members still tend to lump international affairs in with health, education, environment, labor, interior and the rest, and cut away, with international affairs spending the most vulnerable target.

Add to this unique budgetary calculus the institutional reality that the authorizing committees for international affairs – Senate Foreign Relations Committee and House International Affairs – are weak, with members little interested in the budgetary dimensions. So disinterested, in fact, that there has not been a Foreign Assistance authorizing Act for decades that might influence the Appropriations committees’ decisions. Very unlike defense, where the Armed Services committees struggle to on individual program levels through the Defense Authorization Act.

The problem is then compounded as Congress moves through the budget process. Until this Congress, both chambers had Appropriations committees that split jurisdiction for international affairs in two. State Department funding for salaries, buildings, personnel, communications and logistics (along with funding for the UN and peacekeeping) belonged to the Commerce, Justice, State (CJS) Appropriations subcommittee. Funding for foreign assistance and substantive programs like counter-narcotics and terrorism belong to the Foreign Operations subcommittee. The two never talked, once they had a subcommittee money allocation from the committee chair.

If you were a CJS member and had all those State personnel and administrative programs (and the UN) in a subcommittee that also funded cops, the FBI, and technology programs, and the chair gave you less money than you hoped, what would you cut first? Right, the first time – diplomats get cut before cops and technology. Meanwhile, the Foreign Operations subcommittee got less than hoped for, and was generally unpopular, so programs had to make do with less. Moreover, without going into detail, the Foreign Operations deliberations tend to go program-by-program, picking up and setting down pet rocks, and earmarking funds for them like crazy.

Even the analytical support for Congress – the Congressional Budget Office – retains few staff with expertise in international affairs and rarely produces a research product that supports committee deliberations in this part of the budget.

This is a thoroughly dysfunctional process if diplomacy, foreign assistance, multilateral cooperation, public diplomacy, or any of the other part of US foreign relations are to be taken seriously as part of US national security strategy. No strategic view can emerge from this process. Authorizers and appropriators do not strategize together; the appropriators don’t get together, there are rarely joint deliberations or hearings with the defense committees.

Help is not yet on the way. The Senate has taken one important step, which was to take the “State” part of CJS and merge it with Foreign Operations, putting all the international affairs into the same basket as the program funds. The House has not followed suit, however, making conference between these two committees baroque, to say the least.

What is needed is an agenda for Congressional reform, where the right funds are located in the right subcommittees and the authorizers take the job of program and performance oversight seriously, hold regular hearings on the budget, and consider authorizing legislation for the international affairs programs. More broadly, Congress might consider structuring itself so that national defense and international affairs are considered in the same category, with synergy and trade-offs part of the deliberation. The authorizers might consider joint hearings on national security; the appropriators might do the same on budget requests. And the congressional analytical staff might be funded and empowered to provide the members and staff with the information and tools they need to consider national security programs and activities as a whole.

Probably too much to hope for. But it makes little sense to advocate a more coherent planning approach in the Executive Branch, if the product is going to be sliced and diced on the Hill in ways that empty the idea of an integrated national security strategy of any meaning.

Comments

[libertarian soldier]

An excellent analysis and report; one that is overdue. There seem to be, unfortunately, many people willing to comment on the inadequacies of an Adminstration's foreign affairs efforts while giving Congress a complete pass. And ultimately, it is all about the money, which is why I have believed for quite some time that there are not three equal, spearate branches. Rather, Congress is the most powerful and influential. Indeed, I have seen where an entire US policy towards a particular country--and not just Israel--is driven by Congressional decision making. Occaisionally, by a single staffer.

[groy]

Very well said.

Not sure that helps the debate because you've left out all the tools for dialogue, x-phobia, neo-con, war monger, etc. you even failed to insult their intellect!

What's up with that?

[groy]

Very well said.

Not sure that helps the debate because you've left out all the tools for dialogue, x-phobia, neo-con, war monger, etc. you even failed to insult their intellect!

What's up with that?