President Ford has cautioned Congress that he will “regard as unacceptable” the nearly $800 million increase in the foreign aid program to take into account the transitional quarter between the current and new fiscal years. But he did not say that he would veto the legislation should it be adopted.
In a letter to the Senate and House managers of the appropriations legislation, made public at the White House today, the President said he “must oppose both the significant reductions and additions” in the legislation before Congress and described his original budget proposals as “adequate to meet the minimum needs of the recipients without placing unacceptable strains on our budget.”
While media reports of the transitional quarter funding tended to point out that Israel is a beneficiary, neither Ford’s letter nor responses by White House Press Secretary Ron Nessen, when questioned today by the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, supported such reports.
ISRAEL NOT MENTIONED
The President’s letter made no mention of Israel but did deplore the reduction in pending legislation for military assistance to Jordan and some other countries. Actually. Israel would gain about $550 million in military and economic aid if a transitional quarter allowance ultimately becomes law. Egypt would gain $175 million in economic assistance and Jordan and Syria and more than a score of other countries would receive comparable increases in their allocations.
Ford made his views known to Sen. Daniel Inouye (D.Hawaii), chairman, and Sen. Edward Brooke (R.Mass.), the ranking minority member, of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Aid, and to Reps. Otto Passman (D.La.), chairman, and Garner Shriver (R.Kan.), ranking minority member of the corresponding House subcommittee.
In the legislative process thus far, the Senate adopted a ceiling of 25 percent of the appropriated funds for the three months following fiscal year 1976 which ends June 30 and preceding fiscal 1977 which begins Oct. 1. The House, however, had not included such funding in its appropriations bill.
WORK ON BILLS CONTINUES
The House-Senate Conference Committee will meet for the first time tomorrow to negotiate on this and other differences in the two bills. Since the Senate has approved increased funding, the JTA was informed that whether the bill will ultimately be adopted by Congress depends largely on the House conferees.
The House managers had indicated, prior to Ford’s letter, that they did not include the transitional quarter funding in their bill because the White House did not ask for it. But they indicated they would go along with the Senate should that chamber approve the additional funding in this election year.
Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger had indicated his approval of the transitional quarter funding when asked by members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about it while they were considering the authorization aspects of the aid program. However, the White House indicated shortly afterwards that it was not in harmony with Kissinger on that point
Nevertheless, both the Senate and House approved authorization measures that, like the subsequent Senate appropriations legislation, raised funding for some 50 countries by 25 percent of the allocations made for them. It was noted in any case that the ultimate expenditure would rest with the President since he can either spend or withhold the funds in the absence of specific direction from Congress. (By Joseph Polakoff)
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.
