 |
July/August 1994, Page 36 The Cost of Israel to U.S. Taxpayers
Israel Ties Golan Pull-Out To Doubling of U.S. Aid
By Lucille Barnes"Israel may ask for up to $5 billion in supplementary aid if the negotiations with Syria make significant progress," writes Washington correspondent James D. Besser in the May 13-19 issue of The Jewish Week of Queens, NY. "That would be in addition to Israel's regular $3 billion annual allotment." Besser reports that "discussions about a new injection of aid have reportedly involved only top officials of the Rabin government and the Clinton administration." Although Besser, who covers Washington for a number of Jewish weeklies, is generally well informed, he understates present U.S. aid to Israel by limiting his total to the traditional $1.8 billion in military aid and $1.2 billion in economic aid in the foreign assistance budget. For the current and previous fiscal years, however, additional assistance for Israel in other parts of the U.S. government budget have brought grant aid to an annual total of approximately $4.3 billion, exclusive of an additional annual $2 billion in U.S. government loan guarantees. Besser says the new request would be tied to withdrawal of Israeli troops from Syria's Golan Heights and "would include sophisticated new weapons systems designed to enhance Israel's military edge, as well as pre-positioned U.S. military supplies that could be tapped by Israel in the event of a new war." The new request would almost double annual U.S. aid to Israel, as compiled in the box on this page.
"An Effort to Educate Congress""Pro-Israel groups and members of Congress are taking a wait-and-see attitude to the prospect of a new aid request," Besser reports. He quotes "a leading pro-Israel activist" as explaining: "It's all in the most preliminary stages but we do understand it's being discussed at the highest levels between the two governments. If Syria and Israel really do move forward, we can expect an effort to educate Congress about how important American help will be in making this whole thing work." Perhaps someone also can educate Congress about what the current $6.321 billion total annual aid to Israel, which breaks down to $17,317,808 per day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, could do to help "make America work" at home, or help American objectives overseas. The Clinton administration is asking $14.3 billion for its entire NASA budget for 1995, but probably will get less from Congress to cover the space station program, shuttle flights, the planned Mars surveyor program and other vital science and technology projects within the agency. The U.S. therefore spends almost half as much on Israel as it spends on its entire space program, and the difference will shrink further if Israel sells its plan to tie withdrawal from Golan to a near doubling of U.S. aid. There was much grumbling inside and outside Congress at the $40 million spent by independent prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh to investigate the Iran-Contra scandal. Since that's equal to the cost of aid to Israel for two days and eight hours, it might be useful to ask the American public which they think is the bigger waste of money. Another outcry followed revelation of the fact that the U.S. government spent $487 million in fiscal year 1991 on bonuses for federal employees, ranging from bonuses awarded to 18 percent of the Department of Agriculture work force to 73 percent of employees of the Agency for International Development. Many members of Congress think that's a scandal. But it's little more than the cost of 28 days of aid to Israel. Suppose some of that money were spent on things most Americans would approve. For example, the Department of Veterans Affairs is worried about the cost of congressional legislation adding veterans who served 20 years or more solely or primarily in the reserves to the eligibility list for burial in the 114 national cemeteries operated by the federal government. Operating the cemeteries for all members of the armed forces, veterans with at least two years of as duty, and their spouses and some categories of dependents, plus reserves who die on active duty, already costs the government $70 million a year, and the new legislation will add $400,000 a year to that. Therefore, why not skip aid to Israel for half an hour to pay the additional cost? Or, better yet, why not skip aid to Israel for just over four days and cover the entire cost of national cemeteries to the U.S. taxpayer? Americans are making it increasingly clear that, while they're willing to send someone else's soldiers, they don't particularly want American ground troops to participate in United Nations peacekeeping missions if someone else is willing to do it. A lot of countries are, but only if all members of the United Nations pay their fair share of the costs.
The Peacekeeping DebtThe U.S. has asked that its share of U.N. peacekeeping costs be reduced from 31.7 percent to 25 percent of the cost of the 70,000 blue helmets participating in 18 U.N. peace operations costing $3 billion to $3.5 billion a year. The Clinton administration hopes by doing this to get congressional approval to pay U.S. peacekeeping funds now in arrears. The Clinton budget for fiscal 1995 called for $533 million for peacekeeping, $288 million of which would cover arrears from unpaid U.S. obligations in 1994. The Pentagon would spend another $300 million of its own on peacekeeping. Instead of holding up payments, and making the U.S. a worldclass deadbeat in the eyes of other U.N. members, why can't Congress just suspend aid to Israel for 65 days and pay the whole $1,121,000,000 by the Sept. 30 end of the current fiscal year? There are a lot of other ways the U.S. could be making better use of its foreign aid budget than giving more than a third of the worldwide total to Israel, and so much more to Egypt for keeping the peace with Israel that, together, they receive well over half of the total of bilateral U.S. foreign aid worldwide. Perhaps it's time members of Congress consulted the public, instead of the lobbyists and pro-Israel PACs, about spending priorities. Asked to choose between maintaining the present aid to Israel, or funding all of the projects cited above plus nearly half of the NASA budget, we know what 9 of 10 Americans would say. Why can't Congress hear them? Lucille Barnes covers Congress and political affairs for U.S. and foreign publications. SIDEBAR
U.S. Grants to Israel in FY 1993 (in billions)
Interest paid by U.S. on money borrowed for 1993 grants to Israel
|