David Obey

By Najwa Sa'd

David R. Obey, widely recognized as one of the most important, rising members of the U.S. House of Representatives, has a penchant for moving fast and focusing on the big picture. Both traits may be tested in his new position as Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations. In addition to his key role in shaping the annual foreign assistance appropriation, he intends to participate actively in the search for Middle Eastern peace.

Obey has always been a man in a hurry. He had already worked in real estate and earned a B.A. and an M.A. in political science from the University of Wisconsin when he was elected to the Wisconsin General Assembly in 1963 at the age of 24. Six years later he was elected to Congress from Wisconsin's 7th District.

Since arriving in Washington, Obey has steered a 15-member committee to rewrite the House code of ethics, authored legislation to mandate public financing of campaigns, and become a leading Democratic respondent to Administration budget proposals. He narrowly lost a bid for chairmanship of the Budget Committee in 1980.

A Frank Critic of Military Aid

From his position on the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, he criticized the trend toward increasing military aid and decreasing economic development funds. He also became a frank critic of the practice, ever since Egypt and Israel signed a peace agreement, of linking their aid levels. The two countries together consume some 40 percent of the U.S. foreign assistance budget.

Back in 1976, Obey sponsored an amendment to reduce by $200 million the Administration's proposed increase of $1.2 billion in military aid for Israel. His motion drew the attention of Israel's powerful Washington lobby and was defeated 342 to 32. Nevertheless, he called publicly for "full and open debate" on aid to Israel and, in 1977, he became the only member of his Subcommittee ever to meet with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.

Last fall Chairman Clarence "Doc" Long of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations lost a bitterly-contested 1984 Maryland Congressional race, even though pro-Israel Political Action Committees spent far more on his campaign than on any other House race.

Obey took over the subcommittee and his insistence on thorough legislative review of all aid requests may save him from falling into his predecessor's habit of giving Israel at least as much as the Administration requested, regardless of questions raised or cuts recommended in other portions of foreign assistance bills. At a time when all Americans were being asked to accept cutbacks in domestic spending, the Reagan Administration presented Obey's Subcommittee with a request for foreign assistance totaling nearly $15 billion. Obey vowed "to educate" himself and the Congress in a series of overview hearings in which experts testified on the history, effectiveness and future prospects for U.S. Government foreign assistance programs.

During the course of these hearings, Obey maintained that the original concept of the U.S. foreign assistance program has become "warped" toward political and military short-term goals, rather than the long-term economic development for which the programs were conceived. Under the Reagan Administration, requests for military aid, he noted, had absorbed increasingly larger slices of the foreign aid pie. Obey also objected to the fact that this year's proposal provides less than $2 billion for long-term economic development projects. Further, he expressed concern that these are so scattered throughout the world that, in the words of one witness at the hearings, U.S. aid becomes "invisible." If these trends continue, Obey told the press, "maybe we ought to say, hey, it's over."

Open-Minded Approach to Mideast Problems

Obey is also wary of economic "bail out" programs and, unlike many of his colleagues, tries" not to end-run" Administration efforts to pressure Israel into making necessary economic reforms before it receives further, massive, supplemental aid appropriations. Upon returning from leading his colleagues on a study mission to Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Israel, however, Obey defended the Administration's request for an extra $1.5 billion over a two-year period for Israel as a one-time measure to encourage the Israelis to take steps to reform their economy. He stressed that, although it brings Israel's total for the current fiscal year to more than $4.5 billion in combined military and economic aid, it is "not a permanent increase."

At the same time, Obey met with Yassir Arafat again this year and is urging that in its peace efforts the U.S. "try to ensure the accurate representation of the views of the Palestinians ... ideally through the presence and participation of responsible Palestinian leaders."

Obey's fair and open-minded approach to his new duties carries obvious political risks. At the same time, however, Wisconsin constituents may be pleased by his determination to use dwindling U.S. foreign assistance funds to alleviate world political and economic problems, rather than just to pay off real or imagined political debts.

Najwa Sa'd is a research analyst specializing in legislative analysis with the Middle East Policy and Research Center (MEPARC), a publication of the National Association of Arab Americans.