For the second time in a week, Congress sent a foreign aid spending bill to the White House. But this one was expected to win President Bush’s signature, unlike the one he vetoed Sunday.
The new bill differs from the one vetoed by the president in that it does not include a controversial $15 million grant to a U.N. agency that promotes abortion and sterilization in China.
Like its predecessor, the measure provides $3 billion in all-grant aid to Israel for the 1990 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. The $3 billion includes $1.8 billion in military aid and $1.2 billion in economic aid.
Egypt receives $2.1 billion, in keeping with the Camp David accords formula of receiving two-thirds as much foreign aid as Israel.
Of the $1.2 billion in economic aid, $1.13 billion was delivered to Israel on Oct. 31, to reflect a 5.3 percent across-the-board budget cut mandated by Bush on Oct. 16. The fate of the remaining $70 million promised to Israel remained unclear Tuesday afternoon.
But Congress was expected to restore two-thirds of the $70 million cut as part of its 1990 deficit reconciliation bill. The net effect would be a cut of 1.7 percent, or $20 million in economic aid and $31 million in military aid.
In any event, Israel is not expected to recoup $5 million in its foreign aid money that Congress transferred to the U.S. drug interdiction campaign and another $1.5 million used for the Peace Corps program.
$25 MILLION FOR RESETTLEMENT
Besides the basic foreign aid package, other pro-Israel grants in the bill are:
$100 million for the United States to stockpile weapons in Israel. Israel is seeking to sign an agreement with the United States that would allow it to use the weapons.
$35 million for the American Schools and Hospitals Abroad program, which U.S. affiliates of Israeli educational and medical facilities have tapped for funding over the past decade. U.S. funds have often been used to build facilities at religious institutions abroad, to the chagrin of some major Jewish groups that consider that use a violation of the constitutional separation between church and state.
$25 million for Israel to resettle refugees of any ethnic origin, but most of that will be used for Soviet Jews. Israel has requested $400 million in housing loan guarantees to resettle Soviet Jews, but neither Congress nor the administration has yet acted on the request.
$12 million for private voluntary agencies operating relief programs in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In keeping with State Department policy, such funds can be used to assist the indigenous Palestinian population only.
$7.5 million for Israeli development projects in Third World countries.
$7 million for scientific research programs between Egypt and Israel.
A new military debt-refinancing measure is expected to save Israel between $20 million and $60 million by lowering interest rates on its U.S. debts from 10 percent to 8 percent.
In addition to various pro-Israel language, such as prohibiting U.S. funding of U.N. agencies that accept the Palestine Liberation Organization as a member state, the bill contains language supporting the government of Tunisia.
It praises Tunisia for its role in defusing a possible Israeli-PLO confrontation in West Beirut in 1982. At that time, "Tunisia, at American urging, agreed to house the PLO leadership when they were evacuated from West Beirut," the bill states.
RULING ON REFUGEE STATUS
On the Soviet Jewry front, the bill contains enough funds for the State Department to resettle 40,000 of the 50,000 Soviet refugees that will be permitted to enter the United States this fiscal year. It remains unclear whether Jewish groups will push Congress to approve additional funds for the 10,000 unfunded slots.
The bill provides $15 million in retroactive funding for a Department of Health and Human Services matching-grant program for refugees assisted by voluntary agencies.
Most of that money will be going to local Jewish federations that participated in the matching-grant program in the 1989 fiscal year. The federations shelled out the government’s share with the expectation of being reimbursed.
The bill also gives Soviet Jews and Evangelical Christians, as well as certain Vietnamese nationals, presumptive eligibility for refugee status in the 1990 fiscal year. The language represents a compromise from bills introduced by Rep. Bruce Morrison (D-Conn.) and Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.).
At least for this fiscal year, the language is not expected to significantly affect the number of Soviet Jews entering the United States, especially from Rome.
More significant was Attorney General Dick Thornburgh’s directive this summer aimed at clearing out the "Rome-Vienna pipeline" by granting refugee status to virtually all Soviets currently there who seek it.
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