President Clinton’s 1994 budget, sent to Capitol Hill last week, keeps funding for various programs of Jewish interest at the same or higher levels than the current fiscal year.
Although country-by-country expenditures in the foreign aid section of the budget were not spelled out, aid to Israel is expected to remain at its current annual level of $3 billion.
Clinton and his foreign policy team have said on numerous occasions that aid to Israel, the largest recipient of American aid, and to Egypt, the second-largest recipient at $2.1 billion a year, would remain constant for at least another year.
Some in the Jewish community were initially worried that the troubled American economic climate could result in budget cuts affecting aid to Israel or other programs of concern to American Jews. But for the most part, such programs seem to have been spared.
For instance, funding for domestic resettlement of refugees, including Jews from the former Soviet Union, will actually increase after being cut back this past year.
That, of course, assumes that Congress will pass the administration’s budget intact, which it never does. In fact, in recent years, the president’s budget has been regarded as more of a policy blueprint and “wish list” that is drastically revised in the yearlong congressional allocations and appropriations process.
The State Department budget reflects the administration’s focus on changing its foreign assistance priorities in the post-Cold War world.
The budget for the department is based on five objectives: building democracy, promoting and maintaining peace, promoting economic growth and sustainable development, addressing global problems, and providing humanitarian assistance.
As expected, the Soviet successor states received a boost of over $300 million in additional aid, which was backed by many Jewish groups.
FUNDING FOR VOA STATION CUT
Funding for Israel and Egypt’s aid packages falls under the category of promoting and maintaining peace. The administration has placed a high priority on the Middle East peace process.
Aid to Israel and Egypt now totals 87 percent of the entire U.S. security assistance budget, the State Department said, up from 70 percent in the late 1980s, because of shrinking overall levels of aid.
But in real dollars, Israel’s annual infusion of U.S. aid, which has remained constant since the mid-1980s, has been shrinking because of inflation.
In addition to $1.8 billion in military aid and $1.2 billion in economic assistance for Israel, the budget earmarks $55 million in U.S. aid for the resettlement of refugees in Israel, down from $80 million the year before.
The 1994 budget also includes a new request for $5 million to support the multilateral working groups of the Middle East peace process.
Another provision in the budget calls for canceling the Voice of America relay station that had been scheduled to be built in Israel’s Negev desert. The cut had been expected.
The station had triggered controversy in Israel, in part because of concern about its environmental impact.
The new budget also calls for the deletion of provisions included in previous budgets that barred the State and Defense departments from awarding contracts to firms complying with terms of the Arab boycott against Israel.
“We are dismayed that the administration’s budget proposal calls for the deletion of two provisions to fight the Arab boycott,” Phil Baum, associate executive director of the American Jewish Congress, said in a statement protesting the move.
MORE FUNDS FOR REFUGEES
Baum said the proposed deletions are “particularly puzzling” because Vice President Al Gore and State Department counsel Tim Wirth cosponsored the provisions when they served in the Senate.
The Bush administration also called for the deletion of the provisions, AJCongress officials said, but Congress retained them last year.
Other sources, however, said that the deletions would not have much practical effect and did not represent a change in policy, because the provisions are already written into law for the Defense Department, at least.
On the domestic side, refugee assistance, which was cut back this past year to approximately $380 million, was increased to approximately $420 million for 1994. Some of that money will go to federation agencies around the country that are involved in resettling Jews from Russia and the other former Soviet republics.
Another program providing for emergency refugee funding will remain constant at around $49 million. The emergency program can be used to help refugees from turbulent places like Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, which will open later this month, had its funding for operations increased from $11 million to $21 million.
A program providing emergency food and shelter, which is important to Jewish federations across the country, saw its funding increased from $100 million in the 1993 budget to $123 million.
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