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Republican Victory, the Tea Party and U.S. Development Policy
November 3, 2010
The big news out of the U.S. midterm elections is the Republican victory and control of the House of Representatives. Thirty nine of the sixty new House Republicans align themselves with the Tea Party. One of the few things the pundits agree on is that there is no clear Tea Party foreign policy agenda, much less a unified view about whether and how to engage developing countries. While both the elections and the Tea Party candidates focused on domestic issues—largely the slow economic recovery—the new makeup of Congress and how the legislative branch responds to those concerns could have big implications for U.S. global development policy.
Republican control of the House of Representative will require the White House to work and negotiate with Congress to move policy. I think we could see a lot of good coming out of closer administration-congressional relations especially on development issues. On the flip side, research by CGD’s Todd Moss and the World Bank’s Markus Goldstein suggests that foreign aid budget numbers are lower—in absolute flows and as a percent of total aid—when the Congress and White House are controlled by different parties. And given the general mandate of the 112th Congress to reign in government spending and deal with the growing deficit, the entire federal budget–foreign assistance and development certainly included–will be under enormous pressure and likely see cuts.
Of course, aid is about more than money; how rich countries design their aid programs is as important as how much they give. In this sense, the pressure on the budget could help drive aid reforms and force the administration and Congress to make tough choices about where and how we spend our aid dollars and push for stronger evidence on what works in development. The push to be more selective with our development assistance, focus on economic growth, and do a better job of measuring impact and results (and share it publicly) is already lined up in the presidential policy directive on U.S. global development policy and seems like a reform mantle that both parties could get behind.
As for the rest of the White House development agenda, I see flickers of hope on trade which has languished in the past two years. Likely leadership by Dave Camp (R-MI) of the House Ways and Means Committee and Kevin Brady (R-TX) of the trade subcommittee could help move forward free trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama (that didn’t move forward under Democratic leadership). The new presidential policy directive on global development wisely says that development is about more than aid, and trade is a logical way to show that the United States is using its other policy tools for development. If I were in the White House, I’d be reaching out tomorrow to Camp, Brady and Senator-elect (and former U.S. Trade Representative) Rob Portman (R-OH) to come up with a joint trade policy agenda that benefits the United States and developing countries. (CGD president Nancy Birdsall and senior fellow Kim Elliott would urge them to push for duty-free, quota-free trade access for the least developed countries as a first step.)
It’s also worth watching how the three major presidential development initiatives—Feed the Future, the Global Health Initiative, and Global Climate Change Initiative—fare in the new Congress and in a tight budget environment. I wonder whether these initiatives with new structures and new budget lines will look like expanding government bureaucracy or duplication of efforts among U.S. development actors. Republican control of the House could also inject a new round of reproductive rights and abortion debates into global health conversations. With White House leadership, it’s not impossible that we could see some foreign aid reform legislation, but I’m less hopeful that we’ll see a new Foreign Assistance Act. (My colleagues Connie Veillette, Casey Dunning and I will continue tracking what the elections mean for U.S. foreign assistance reform on our Rethinking U.S. Foreign Assistance blog.)
Finally, the Obama administration has promised to leverage U.S. development investments through the multilateral development institutions, including through international financial institutions like the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and regional development banks. While the United States can leverage both money and influence this way, I expect we’ll nevertheless see some renewed skepticism of international institutions (starting with the United Nations) in the 112th Congress. The international financial institutions in particular, dramatically increased their lending in 2008-09 to help developing countries cope with the global financial crisis and support economic recovery (which was good for the United States too). Many of them will be seeking funding increases next year which will be an uphill battle on, well, the Hill. In general, I think we may see the administration change the tune (think more “burden-sharing” and less “global partnership”), but not the song on multilateral engagement.
What do you think the elections mean for U.S. development policy?
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6 Responses to “Republican Victory, the Tea Party and U.S. Development Policy”
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November 3rd, 2010 at 7:42 pm
The last few Congress (in fact ever since USAID was founded) have failed to reform USaid policy away from its myriad of uncoordinated structures, its neo-liberal out look and its non-developmental culture.
USAID will never be the world’s premier aid agency. DFID, depsite its flaws, still holds the title.
November 4th, 2010 at 10:57 am
The new Republican majority in the House will very likely not turn it’s attention to development policy, with respect to aid process and policies. It’ll be too busy with the domestic issues that the Tea Party got elected on. What it will do is gripe publicly about the budget costs to aid. There will be movement for development budgets to be cut, to pay lip service to fiscal responsibility in lieu of fixing the prime reasons for the US debt.
After all, there are only 2 years until Obama is up for reelection, and Republicans will make no hard budget decisions that run the risk of limiting Obama to a single term. So that leaves the weaker institutions like USAID to pick on.
November 4th, 2010 at 6:01 pm
A good, balanced assessment. As you suggest, there is plenty of room for making aid more effective without additional money. Nor is it obvious that a new Foreign Assistance Act is an unmitigated good thing. There have been knowledgeable folks who work aid issues within the government who have argued that it is better to make due with the rickety process you know than to risk losing some key tools in a rewrite.
November 5th, 2010 at 12:52 pm
Foreign Aid – let’s be honest is in a mess..
The money that is being sent out by the west and we all know it now is in the billions (over the years)..
is ‘not’ in probably 75% of the time, getting to the needy/those for whom it is intended. So let’s all clear our minds on this.
I was at the G8 conference(as a writer) in Toronto and behind me was a financial guy from a US think tank …
he told me what is hurting the US is not only the trillions of offshore american money– but also money sent to ‘leaders’ of other nations – and the ‘money buck’ stops there.–
My take — dont give money until there is an absolute honest and clear system – to see ‘where it goes’..
For those americans whose money is offshore…
perhaps you should start thinking about your country!
This is not to take away from the utter disaster pres Obama Barack has brought on .. by instituting a health bill..at an absolutely impossible time for the US..
The 30,000,000 who didnt have health coverage — which was the issue — could have been covered in so many other ways..
I truly believe that was not the real agenda..
I believe the real agenda were the abortion providers..
who at all costs wanted abortion in that package.
and then went to AFrica and other countries and
‘warned them they would only get US dollars if they put abortion rights in their ‘health’ (sic) package’.
Kenya caved in for the first time in history –
Planned Parenthood at the UN is the most anti life ferocious angry group of people I have witnessed..
this is the cancer at the heart of what is eating America..and Obama would do well to pay heed to it..
America however will rise up and is rising up again ..God bless America – it will defend the Western world.. as the ‘other forces’ try to take it over..
November 8th, 2010 at 6:19 am
People like Maria Jones have been reading too much Dambisa Moyo.
November 10th, 2010 at 6:17 pm
What I have read and listend too makes me fearful we might be headed back to the early 90′s. Then as now the tune was/is cuts, cuts, cuts/jobs, jobs, jobs.
A time when USAID was in the gun sights of Helms, funding was being cut, AID was beig gutted, etc. One way the Administration coped was to openly state that foreign aid had to create “American” jobs.