[PEN-L:5214] Abolishing AID

[Paul Altesman <paltesman@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Bob Naiman suggests it would be good if there was a call to abolish all foreign

aid, as Jessie Helms is now pushing for.  I think this is very ill thought-out.
Clearly some (much) U.S. foregn aid goes to the wrong people.  Some goes to
help poor people mobilize themselves to organize for primary health care and
basic education (e.g. the child survival fund of AID pushed by the black caucus and the hunger coalition).  In short, "foregn aid" is very much like "govt.
programs".  Much is aimed at helping the powerful and this helps the popularist
right mobilise support against any govt. intervention (guess who's programs will
actually survive). Surely the progressive position has to be based in a careful
analysis of who is being helped and what interests are being furthered with a
subsequent demand for a dramatic shift in assistance to programs that help the
poor and dispossed to organize.
	The issue is far from theoretical.  Last week Jessie Helms passed a bill
gutting AID *and* merging it into the State Dept.  When the foreign aid does
then flow again (there will always be issues like the mideast and yugoslavia
which will start the money up again), does anyone think that the State Dept will
think more of the poor and working people than the development economists at
AID?  At least the development community is a mixed bag.
	Likewise, it sounds great that Helms is proposing gutting IDA, the windo
w of the World Band devoted to the poorest countries.  But this only shifts
power to the far more monetarist IMF who will then be the only game in town.
Again, it seems to me we should be demanding a different sort of World BAnk
instead.
	Am I misssing something?

	Paul