USAID: GOP Budget Would Kill 70,000 Kids Worldwide

Budget would cause the deaths of at least 70,000 children who rely on American funding, says USAID

April 1, 2011 RSS Feed Print

BY Aliyah Shahid
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

The GOP's budget would cause the deaths of at least 70,000 children around the world who rely on American funding, according to the government agency in charge of foreign aid.

"I believe these are very conservative estimates," USAID Administrator Rajiv Shah told a House Appropriations subcommittee this week. [See a roundup of political cartoons on the federal budget and deficit.]

Of the 70,000 deaths, 30,000 would come from slashing malaria control programs, 24,000 from lack of immunizations and 16,000 from unsafe birthing practices.

The budget bill, H.R. 1, would cut 16% from President Obama's budget request for international aid.

Republicans and Democrats have been wrangling for months over a long-term budget that would fund the federal government through September. They must reach a compromise by April 8 in order to avoid a government shutdown.

The latest round of horse trading reportedly has Democrats conceding $33 billion in cuts—less than the $61 billion demanded by the Tea Party, but far more than the left initially wanted to allow.

House Speaker John Boehner—caught between the GOP's Tea Party wing and the necessity of getting Democrats to sign off on his plan, too—insists there's still no deal. [Check out a roundup of political cartoons on the Tea Party.]

Requests for comment from House Speaker John Boehner's spokesman were not immediately returned.

During a press conference on Thursday, Boehner said Democrats were "rooting for a government shutdown." He added that the GOP would fight for all the spending cuts they could.

During the hearing on foreign aid, Texas Republican Rep. Kay Granger said that while she understands the "value of many of these important programs, the funding request for next year is-is truly unrealistic in today's budget environment," according to Foreign Policy.

We simply cannot fund everything that has been funded in the past. And we certainly cannot continue to fund programs that are duplicative and wasteful," she added.

Tags:
New York Daily News,
deficit and national debt,
John Boehner,
Congress,
democratic party,
republican party,
Tea Party

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Here are some numbers from the 2011 budget.

The total budget submitted (I'm not sure about the latest amount after the deal reached on April 8) is 3.8 Trillion Dollars.

One percent of this amount is 38 Billion dollars.

Ten percent of this latter amount is 3.8 Billion dollars.

Less than half of this amount is 1.5 Billion dollars, which is the amount being requested for Global Health programs.

So the global health request is 0.04 % of the budget.

If you had 10 dollars, this represents 0.4 cents, less than half a cent.

Surely the Government has many other places to cut spending - for example, the Department of Defense spends $25 Billion annually on UNUSED spare parts sitting in boxes in warehouses, based on a study conducted by Senator Bernie Sanders.

All the fuss and drama raised by the "Government Shutdown" debate masks the source of the real problems which lie in lost revenues due to corporate giveaways (GE pays $0 in taxes while making $14 Billion in profit) and the tax breaks for the wealthy which would have brought in $700 Billion over 10 years.

Anyone with a second grade education knows that a budget is based on both REVENUES and EXPENDITURES. You cannot just talk about one of the components and ignore the other.

gm-on-politics of IA 3:52PM April 09, 2011

This is real stuff folks. We may not know much about other countries, this does not mean we do not carry influence. Our empire is waning and the Chinese will pick it up if we have enough world left to live in. We need to stop making this a game of us against them and understand that everything affects us all world wide. A little aid to another country goes much farther even the the ubiquitous McDonald's value meal.

Linda of CA 10:12PM April 07, 2011

Don't waste US taxpayers money, pull all troops out of foreign countries and mind your own business at home. Most US citizens are ignorant about the rest of the world anyways.

Rob 5:11PM April 06, 2011

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