Center for Global Development’s “U.S. Development Policy”: House Panel Finds Near Consensus against Foreign Aid Cuts
Erin Collinson, senior associate for policy outreach, and Christine Gilbert, policy outreach intern, both with CGD, write about a House Foreign Affairs Committee’s hearing titled “The Budget, Diplomacy, and Development” held on Tuesday. “All three witnesses — the Hoover Institute’s Stephen D. Krasner, AEI’s Danielle Pletka, and Former Under Secretary for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns — aligned themselves in clear opposition to cutting the 150 account by [about] 30 percent. More surprising still, participating committee members from both sides of the aisle — with one notable exception — expressed disappointment, if not dismay, regarding the White House’s treatment of U.S. foreign assistance and diplomacy in its FY 2018 budget blueprint. Committee members and testifying witnesses emphasized the need for U.S. foreign policy to employ all ‘three Ds’: defense, diplomacy, and development,” they write (3/29).