Expectations Low on Foreign Aid Programs

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON -- Spending for some U.S. humanitarian assistance programs abroad is likely to be frozen -- or cut -- when President Bush submits his budget proposal next week, lawmakers and aid groups say.
...
Bush's proposal for overall foreign spending, including military aid, is expected to increase. A senior U.S. official told The Associated Press he will request more than $22 billion, compared with $19.7 billion this year.

But funding for humanitarian programs is tight at a time of record deficits. With Bush expected to propose increases for global AIDS and Millennium Challenge, little money is left for other humanitarian programs, according to aid groups and members of Congress and their staffs.

Mary E. McClymont, president of InterAction, an alliance of overseas relief organizations, said programs at risk for cuts include those providing education, health care and agriculture assistance. These programs help prevent the kind of instability that could turn some countries into breeding grounds for terrorists, she said.

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-us-foreign-aid,0,4197021.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines

[drscm]

1. Why support programs for the living when it is easier just to kill them?

[leveymg]

2. And so much more profitable.

Look to Halliburton as the model next-generation development firm.