House Cuts President’s FY2011 Development Budget

House appropriators marked up the FY2011 foreign affairs spending bill at $52.656 billion yesterday. The subcommittee mark up is roughly $4 billion above last year’s enacted levels, but also $4 billion below the president’s request for FY2011. My takeaway: this budget looks like more of the same and is a long way from a new approach to global development.The only areas increased above the president’s FY2011 request levels are: HIV/AIDS, refugees, education (including basic education and cultural exchanges) and water. There is no change in funding for Israel, Egypt, Jordan or the Peace Corps. All other programs are cut below the president’s request. On the flip side, the bill contains modest increases above last year’s enacted levels for everything except: Afghanistan, Iraq, counter narcotics, refugees, and voluntary peacekeeping operations.Some line items of note:Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC): $1.105 billion; $174 million below the president’s request and the same as FY2010 enacted.Agriculture and food security: $1 billion; $353 million below the president’s request and $112 million above FY2010 levels. Of the $408 million in multilateral funding requested for global food security, the subcommittee provided only $150 million.Global health and child survival: $2.725 billion; $288 million below the president’s request and $305 above FY2010 enacted.HIV/AIDS: $5.875 billion; $25 million above the president’s request and $166 million above FY2010 enacted.Afghanistan: $0; $3.9 billion below the president’s request. (Read more about the Afghanistan cut from Congresswoman Lowey and CGD colleagues Todd Moss and Casey Dunning.)Pakistan: $2.514 billion; $540 million below the president’s request and $1.056 above FY2010 enacted.Clean Tech Fund: $300 million; $100 million below the request and equal to FY2010 enacted.International Development Association (IDA): $1.235 billion; $50 million below the president’s request and $27.5 million below FY2010 enacted.Most remarkable is that the president’s requests for his new signature development initiatives on global health and food security are not fully funded. And the MCC, despite sounding a lot like the new approach for U.S. development, also gets cut below the request level. Similarly, administration efforts to channel more funding multilaterally are restrained. Again, I don’t envy the appropriators in this tough budget environment, but it’s hard to see signs of a new approach to U.S. global development here. All the more reason any effort from the administration to reform U.S. global development policy must work with Congress.