Political oratory by leaders in both parties is fine, sometimes even inspirational, but the real budget priorities are set by the administration and Congress–and I fear we may end up with a federal budget that responds more to the national passion than the national interest.
Secretary of State Colin Powell told the World Economic Forum that the U.S. can battle terrorism around the Earth, but we cannot eliminate it without dealing with “the areas of poverty, despair and hopelessness” that can breed terrorism. He is correct, of course. But the budget doesn’t reflect that sense of priority.
President Bush has asked for a $48 billion increase in defense spending, roughly a 12 percent rise, and much more in future years. We all want adequate security for our nation, and I hope that part of that money will go to much-needed improved intelligence, including penetration of terrorist groups. Few would begrudge a 4.1 percent salary increase for those serving in our military. However, we are already spending more on defense than the total of the next eight nations with large defense budgets. And billions continue to be spent on a missile-shield system that so far has proved to be a dud, and most military scientists believe cannot be effective. The latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office are that the system could cost $238 billion. Everything labeled defense is not necessarily a wise expenditure.
I trust that Congress will examine the defense request carefully, and where there is a real security need, we should provide for that. But security is more than weapons. We discovered that on Sept. 11.
A month after the World Trade Center tragedy, Newsweek’s lead article was titled: “Why do they hate us?” Much of the world does not hate us but our frequent insensitivity to the other 96 percent of the world’s population too often appears as arrogance, the arrogance of “the rich guy” who ignores the poor.
Under the Marshall Plan, we led the world in assisting those impoverished and devastated by World War II. The first poll, taken after Secretary of State George Marshall and President Harry Truman announced the program, showed only 14 percent of the American people supported it. It was overwhelmingly unpopular. But a Democratic president and a Republican Congress joined forces to pass that measure, which not only appealed to our humanitarian instincts, but ended up being a huge help to our economy as well as that of Western Europe.
Today our nation spends more than the next eight nations combined on defense, but is dead last among the 21 wealthy nations of the world in the percentage of our income that helps the poor beyond our borders. As a percentage of our economy, our aid to the world’s poor is at the lowest point since World War II.
At a January meeting of officials from the U.S., Western Europe, the United Nations and the World Bank, the U.S. vetoed a proposal that all of the wealthy nations of the world would double their developmental assistance–a total of $50 billion for all of these nations combined–or roughly the same amount President Bush is asking as an increase in defense for our country alone. In a commencement speech at Notre Dame last spring, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan called the U.S. response to the world’s impoverished “shameful.” Just as the Marshall Plan resulted in both economic and security advantages to the United States, so a more balanced and generous approach to the world’s impoverished ultimately can aid in our economic well-being and help build a stable world less tarnished by terrorism.
In contrast to the $48 billion increase in defense, the administration is asking for an $800 million increase in foreign economic assistance–and Congress is likely to reduce that. The administration’s request for foreign aid is less than one-half of 1 percent of the total federal budget.
Simply increasing developmental assistance is not a cure-all, not a substitute for building other bridges of understanding. We have 547,000 international students at American colleges and universities. That helps. But only 1 percent of our students ever study abroad, and two-thirds of them go to Western Europe. In the United States we can go from grade school to getting a Ph.D. without having a year of a foreign language, and that adds to our insularity. I believe we are the only nation in which you can go through elementary school without studying another language and, equally important, acquire a sensitivity to other cultures. Factors like these create an atmosphere that too often makes our leaders hesitate to challenge us to do better on foreign aid.
Yes, we want a strong defense. We are willing to make sacrifices to have that. But security is more than weapons and our leaders need to understand that and tell us that.
