Despite some last minute fits and starts, it appears that the House and Senate are cleared to pass a megabus spending bill containing the State Department and Foreign Operations budget. With a deadline looming (Friday midnight) before another short-term continuing resolution is needed, and members wishing to get out of town for the end-of-year break, there is a good shot that action will be completed on fiscal year 2012…that began back on October 1.The international affairs community was bracing for deep cuts either from the Deficit Reduction Committee (aka Super) that ultimately failed, or from the regular appropriations process. The concern was further fueled when it became apparent that the Defense Department’s budget was getting $5 billion more than anticipated.In the end, State/Foreign Operations did okay and better than expected, but largely because some costs previously included in the core budget were shifted to the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) account to fund temporary and extraordinary expenses. OCO funding is considered emergency and does not count against budgetary caps, making this a tempting maneuver, but one with future implications.Here are the numbers –
| 2011 Enacted | 2012 Request | Conference |
| State Dept. Core | 15.9 | 15.1 | 12.6 |
| State OCO | - - | 4.4 | 4.6 |
| For. Ops. Core | 33.0 | 35.8 | 29.5 |
| For. Ops OCO | -- | 4.3 | 6.6 |
| Total – Core and OCO | 48.9 | 59.7 | 53.3 |
In billions U.S. current dollars. Excludes food aid.
The total of $53.3 billion is a nearly 11% cut from the request but is 9% above 2011 levels.Some fear that by shifting core funds into OCO, it will make it even more difficult in future years. When the administration stops using OCO (and that, like supplemental bills, will be a tough habit to break), budgeters will be hard pressed to justify shifting money characterized as temporary and extraordinary back into the regular budget.When excluding OCO, the 2012 level is $42.1 billion, or 14% below 2011. And, 2011 was an 11% cut from 2010 so we are looking at a 25% decline over a two year period. For some historical perspective, international affairs took a similar magnitude of cuts in the 1990s – with hindsight we can argue that accommodating those cuts was not artfully handled, leaving a legacy of a dispersed aid programs, incoherent policy implementation, and an abandonment of evidenced-based programming.Will a similar approach be taken now? There are two ways to accommodate cuts. All programs can be cut commensurately, spreading the pain around. This may be the easy route, but could very well dilute the effectiveness of our foreign assistance. Or, this opportunity can be used to focus resources on programs for which there is evidence of impact. The latter route is an exercise in which my CAP colleague John Norris and I are fully engaged.Tight budgets and effective, focused international engagement need not be mutually exclusive. While the 2012 budget will defer some of the tough decisions (although not all), it is still imperative to re-evaluate what the U.S. does and where, better identify U.S. goals, craft corresponding strategies, and then just perhaps, drop activities (and spending) that are ineffective, out of line with U.S. objectives, or simply relics from the past.
