WASHINGTON -- Senate Republican leader Robert Dole of Kansas said Monday critics of President Bush's economic aid requests for Nicaragua and Panama want to 'turn our backs' on the two emerging democracies in favor of Eastern Europe and Israel.
Dole said Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., referred to Nicaragua and Panama last week as two countries of 'slight importance' to the United States's overall security interests and their aid proposals may have to be reduced.
'It is distressing to hear that some senators from that (Democrats') side of the aisle are suggesting that we ought to basically turn our backs on the newly installed democratic government in Panama, and the one about to be sworn-in in Nicaragua, by cutting their proposed aid package by more than 60 percent,' Dole told the Senate.
Leahy was not on the floor, and was not immediately available to comment on Dole's remarks.
Bush has asked Congress for $500 million as part of a $1 billion-plus aid package to help the U.S.-installed government of Panama revive an economy battered by U.S. economic sanctions and the invasion that toppled Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega.
On March 13, Bush asked for $300 million in separate assistance for Nicaragua, where democratic elections in February ousted the Soviet- and Cuban-supported Sandinista government after a decade of economic mismanagement and U.S.-supported guerrilla war.
At that time, Bush proposed the $800 million for Panama and Nicaragua be diverted from defense spending and called on Congress to reach agreement with the administration by March 27 on the specific programs to be cut.
Bush's hope of seeing the aid package approved by the Easter congressional recess has been complicated by Senate debate on an overhaul of the Clean Air Act, disagreement over defense budget offsets and the broader question of changing foreign aid priorities.
Foreign aid has always been unpopular politically, and in an era of budget deficits and cutbacks in domestic programs, it is even more so. It has been suggested that the requests for Nicaragua and Panama be cut back by more than 50 percent to help aid programs for Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and other Eastern European nations whose centrally planned economies and political systems are emerging from the dominance of the Soviet Union.
The comments by Dole and Leahy reflect the struggle in Congress to find sufficient money to help new democracies in Europe and Central America as well as promote U.S. security and human rights concerns in other countries. One of those nations, Israel, receives $3.6 billion in aid each year, or about $700 per capita, and is the highest recipient of U.S. foreign aid.
