The Senate is expected to sustain President Ford’s veto of the foreign aid authorization bill. But Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (D.Minn.), chairman of the Senate foreign aid subcommittee, said he would recommend that the basic provisions of the legislation rejected by the President should be incorporated into new legislation applicable to both fiscal years 1976 and 1977.
Ford vetoed the bill Friday, just seven weeks before the end of the current fiscal year to which the measure applied. In his veto message he alleged that the bill, as it stood, would seriously compromise the President’s ability to conduct foreign affairs. He referred specifically to what he characterized as “an arbitrary arms ceiling ban” that would limit his ability to respond to “the legitimate defense needs of our friends” and obstruct “U.S. industry from competing fairly with foreign (arms) suppliers.”
The reference was to provisions that would give Congress veto power over arms deals by private American companies in excess of $25 million and would put a $9 billion ceiling on U.S. arms sales abroad in any given year.
PROVISIONS ASSAILED BY FORD
The President did not mention the bill’s provisions for transitional quarter funding for the three months between the end of fiscal 1976 and the start of fiscal 1977 under which Israel would have received an extra $550 million in military assistance. Nor did he refer to another provision, opposed by the Administration, that would cut off aid to countries that harbor international terrorists.
But Ford assailed the measure’s insistence on “compliance by recipient countries with visa practices or human rights standards set by our Congress as a condition for continued U.S. assistance.” He claimed that provision “ignores the many other complex factors which should govern our relationships with those countries.” The provision was aimed against countries, such as Saudi Arabia, which discriminate against Americans on grounds of race, religion or sex.
Humphrey charged the President with seeking to “undermine” the work of Congress. He said the veto “seriously complicates the operation of many important programs, including his (Ford’s) own Middle East initiatives.” Meanwhile, the Senate-House conference bill on appropriations to fund the foreign aid programs established by the vetoed authorization legislation is being held up by the House foreign aid subcommittee pending possible compromises on means to provide the funds under existing authorization measures.
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