Washington, DC — After wrangling over everything from funding energy development to Medicare, the U.S. Senate has fled Washington for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays without managing to send a massive "omnibus" bill to the White House for President George W. Bush's signature.
The result is that the spending of billions of dollars for the Millennium Challenge Account and the global fight against HIV/Aids will be delayed.
Majority leader Bill Frist (R-Tennessee) told colleagues Tuesday afternoon that work needed to finish seven other spending bills could not be completed before adjournment at the end of the day and would have to be taken up in January after the holiday break. The Senate Republican leadership has now decided to come back for December session and make another stab at finishing up, however.
Traditionally, unfinished spending bills are lumped into one package for the president's signature "so that he won't have to sign a whole stack of bills," explained one Congressional aide. Last year, the federal budget was not approved until February.
Earlier this month, House and Senate conferees approved an extra US$400 million for the global Aids fight that would bring total U.S. government spending on HIV/Aids to US$2.4bn for fiscal year 2004. That money would be a down payment on a five-year US$15 billion anti-HIV effort in Africa and the Caribbean signed into law by President Bush last May.
On the other hand, the Senate slashed US$350m from President Bush's request of US$1.4bn as a first installment for the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). Proposed by Bush in March 2002, the MCA establishes a new US$5bn pot of foreign assistance money for selected poor countries that meet U.S. criteria for reforms in governance and economics. About half the money is expected to go to African nations.
The program has been controversial within the administration. Though offering public support, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has reportedly been arguing that the MCA unfairly diminishes its role in foreign assistance by setting up a powerful new mechanism for foreign assistance that is lodged in the White House. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) which oversees federal spending thinks it is too much money and began lobbying against the program among Congressional allies as Bush began a state visit to Great Britain. "Bush was stepping on a plane going to England and that's when we found out that this thing was falling apart," said one Congressional MCA advocate who asked not to be named.
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"We are alarmed," wrote Bread for the World President, Reverend David Beckman, to President Bush last week. Part of Beckman's concern centered on a decision to raise the ceiling on MCA money that would be available to middle income countries, meaning that less would be available to the poorest of poor nations. "Administration officials are pushing to change the authorization language in ways that would make the MCA less focused on poverty," wrote Beckman.
By Wednesday, according to one Capital Hill source, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was "working the phones" in an effort to get at least some of the cut MCA money back. And by the end of the week, agreement was reached that US$350m would be put back into the MCA request. The money will come from the unspent funds of various government agencies.
The omnibus legislation also blocks U.S. military and other assistance to Nigeria - but not humanitarian aid - unless it cooperates in the surrender of Charles Taylor. It is still not clear whether this language will be softened or eliminated in the legislation that finally does reach President Bush's desk.
