The House yesterday authorized by a vote of 240-169 a ceiling of $4.8 billion in foreign aid for the current fiscal year ending June 30 and also approved an additional 25 percent or $1.2 billion for the transitional period between the end of the current fiscal year and the new fiscal year which starts Oct. 1. But the fate of the special funding is far from decided.
The House late today takes up the appropriation bill for the program that makes no mention of the funding for the transitional quarter and the likelihood is that it will not include the money in its measure. The Senate, which has already authorized a program approximately equal to the House authorization; has not begun to act on appropriations legislation. The Senate Appropriation Committee is waiting for the results from the House, as is traditional, before it begins its considerations possibly next week.
At about the same time, a Senate-House conference will probably begin work on ironing out the differences in the authorization measures to provide a uniform bill for further vote in both chambers and then submission to President Ford for his signature. Authorization measures set the policy and money ceilings but the actual funding is done by a separate appropriations bill.
The House authorization bill provides $2.55 billion for Israel including $1.5 billion in military credits of which up to half can be forgiven by the President. The bill also includes $750 million for Egypt in economic aid: $90 million for Syria and $225 million for Jordan, including $145 million in military grants and credits. The Senate version provides slightly smaller sums for all the countries including $30 million less for Israel in economic support.
OPPOSITION FROM CONSERVATIVES
The House adopted the authorization program with party lines broken. The opposition came mainly from conservatives. Among those who argued against the amount of assistance to Israel was Rep. Clement Zablocki (D.Wis,) who, based on seniority, will take over the chairmanship of the House International Relations Committee when Rep. Thomas Morgan (D.Pa.) retires from Congress at the end of this year. Zablocki contended that the military funding for Israel was extensive, noting that it was only $300 million in the previous fiscal year.
Voting for the authorization was Rep. Otto Passman (D.La.), head of the House Appropriations Committee, although he and others on that panel have refused to include a transitional quarter fund because the Ford Administration had not asked for it. Capitol Hill sources told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that international and domestic politics are involved in the foreign aid funding strategy both in the Administration and the Congress.
The Administration, they said, desires to pin responsibility on the transitional quarter funding on Congress in view of domestic problems such as unemployment and social programs and also to use it as leverage in dealing with the Middle East. The House may seek to put the responsibility both on the Administration and the Senate, largely for domestic reasons this election year. Thus the Senate’s decision on appropriations is expected to determine the outcome on the funding.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
