Global Policy Forum

By Michael M. Phillips

Even as he pledges significant aid for the victims of the Indian Ocean tsunami, President Bush is falling further and further behind on promises to boost funding to combat poverty in the developing world. The president quietly notified the Millennium Challenge Corp., a newly created foreign-aid agency, that his proposed fiscal 2006 budget likely will include billions of dollars less than he promised during his first term. Mr. Bush's budget plan, scheduled for release early next month, also includes an increase in global anti-AIDS funding that is much smaller than the pledge he made when announcing an ambitious health initiative two years ago.

The shortfalls are raising alarm among health and antipoverty activists who had rallied to the president's side when he promised tens of billions of dollars to help developing nations in Africa and elsewhere. "From what we hear, the president appears to be stepping back from his promise to fully fund" the Millennium Challenge initiative, said Mary E. McClymont, president of InterAction, a Washington-based alliance of aid groups.

The Millennium Challenge Corp. altered its Web site over the weekend to erase a reference to the president's initial funding promise, made in 2002. "There are no second-class citizens in the human race," Mr. Bush said at the time. "I carry this commitment in my soul." Last Friday, the corporation Web site said that "President Bush has pledged to increase funding...to $5 billion a year starting in FY06, roughly a 50% increase over then current U.S. core development assistance." Instead, the White House has now told the corporation to expect about $3 billion in the fiscal 2006 budget, and on Monday, the corporation's site read, "The president has pledged to increase funding for the MCA to $5 billion in the future."

If Congress meets the president's request, it would leave the agency $4.5 billion short of the total the administration promised to provide over its first three years, according to private aid agencies familiar with the president's spending proposal.

A Millennium Challenge spokeswoman declined to explain the change in the Web site or discuss the proposed budget. "Obviously, the administration is still committed to the Millennium Challenge Account as a significant part of our foreign policy and our assistance to other countries," said Chad Kolton, spokesman for the White House Office of Management and Budget. Mr. Kolton pointed the finger at Congress, saying lawmakers have been reluctant to fund a new agency until it has proved its worth.

But antipoverty groups say it is the president's responsibility to use his political clout to secure the promised funding. "The president committed to requesting $5 billion for next year to help the poorest people in the world send their children to school and get clean water into their villages," said Seth Amgott, a spokesman for Debt AIDS Trade Africa, an advocacy group founded by Irish rock star Bono that worked with the administration to create the aid program. "We have a hard time believing the United States would fail to keep this commitment, and we expect the administration to keep this promise in the budget request for next year." Bono issued a statement calling the proposed $3 billion budget "inconceivable."

The Millennium Challenge program is intended to direct U.S. grants to developing countries whose policies promote economic growth. The corporation hasn't yet approved any assistance, but officials expect Madagascar to be the first grant recipient, probably in the next couple of months.

DATA plans to run radio and newspaper ads next week to pressure the administration to meet the president's funding promises. Charities are equally concerned that the administration is shortchanging programs to fight HIV/AIDS. Mr. Bush announced in his 2003 State of the Union address that he would increase AIDS funding by $10 billion over the following five years. At the time, Congress was approving about $1.6 billion a year in spending.

U.S. AIDS funding increased a total of $2 billion over fiscal years 2004-05, and Mr. Bush is proposing an additional $1.6 billion increase for 2006, according to people familiar with his proposal. That still would leave him with $6.4 billion -- a dauntingly large amount -- to extract from Congress in the following two years in order to meet his pledge. "While we appreciate the increase that is apparently being recommended, we think it, too, falls far short of the U.S. share of the global need," said InterAction's Ms. McClymont.

Mark Dybul, the administration's assistant global AIDS coordinator, said the budget numbers are in keeping with the president's plan to boost spending gradually to allow countries to expand their health-care systems to deliver vital drugs effectively. "We're dead on target for the original plan to scale up integrated prevention, care and treatment, and to also scale up the budget as capacity is built," he said. The administration announced yesterday that its increased funding has allowed 172,000 people infected with HIV in Uganda, Guyana, Botswana and elsewhere to get life-extending antiretroviral therapy.

The administration plans to seek tsunami-aid funds separate from other U.S. foreign assistance. The president is expected to request close to $1 billion in funding from Congress, including reimbursement for costs incurred by the military providing relief and airlifts for victims.

Meanwhile, the president will ask Congress for more money to track down, arrest and deport illegal immigrants, but only a fraction of the 2,000 new Border Patrol agents called for in a bill he signed last year. "We expect an enhancement [at the Border Patrol], but it certainly would not be doable within our budget constraints to do 2,000 the first year," said Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary for the Department of Homeland Security.

According to another administration official, the immigration-control budget will call for spending around $23 million, nearly five times the current level, on work-site investigations by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Department of Homeland Security.

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