Christian Science Monitor: U.S. foreign aid cuts: what could impact be?
“…A leaked State Department budget document lays out proposals for a 30.8 percent cut in development aid and plans to sharply cut back USAID, America’s premier foreign aid agency, by closing many of its projects. … ‘There is no rhyme or reason to the cuts,’ says Tom Hart, director of ONE, a Washington-based campaign group focused on eradicating extreme poverty. … Development aid has traditionally been seen as one of the three pillars of Washington’s international presence, along with defense and diplomacy…” (Ford, 4/28).

PRI: So we slash U.S. foreign aid. But why?
“… ‘There are going to be cuts,’ says Andrew Natsios, who was at the helm of USAID under President George W. Bush. ‘They could take a 10 percent cut in a $30 billion foreign aid program and it’s not going to be catastrophic at all. But a 30 percent cut would be disastrous…’ [Gayle Smith, who ran USAID under President Barack Obama, and is now the new head of the anti-poverty ONE campaign, said,] ‘To do anything that would cause people around the world to think maybe America isn’t there for us anymore is something that some people may think is cost effective in the short term, but I’m absolutely confident that if you did the cost-benefit analysis this is a very, very expensive proposal’…” (Hackel, 4/28).