Congressional news
A potential government shutdown was avoided, at least for now, when the Senate passed yesterday a two-week extension to the FY 2011 continuing resolution (CR), funding the government at FY 2010 levels until March 18. President Obama quickly signed the bill into law. This two-week CR cuts $4.01 billion in spending by targeting programs President Obama had already slated for elimination.
At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing Tuesday, Rep. Russ Carnahan (D-MO) noted, during a Q&A conversation with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, that he believes citizen diplomacy and international exchange programs are “critical” aspects of U.S. public diplomacy. Sec. Clinton stated her agreement, saying that she would “double or triple” student exchange programs if she could, and that she is a “big believer in people-to-people diplomacy”:
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testified in front of the House Foreign Affairs Committee this morning, arguing in support of a robust International Affairs Budget and saying that the cuts to the Department of State budget included in the House’s recently passed bill, H.R. 1, would be “devastating to our national security”:
The House of Representatives approved this evening a stopgap measure that would fund the federal government through March 18 (the current continuing resolution, or CR, expires this Friday). This two-week CR cuts $4.01 billion in spending by targeting programs President Obama had already slated for elimination.
The Chronicle of Higher Education reported this week on a session at the Association of International Education Administrators (AIEA) conference in San Francisco led by Michael McCarry of the Alliance and Miriam Kazanjian of the Coalition for International Education.
With a “bleary-eyed” roll call vote at 4:35 a.m. this past Saturday morning, the House passed HR 1, its bill to fund the remainder of FY 2011. In this bill, State Department international exchange programs receive a 21 per cent cut, or a reduction to $501.3 million from the current funding level of $635 million.
The House Appropriations Committee announced Friday night the completion of its spending bill (H.R. 1) to fund the remainder of FY 2011. In the bill, State Department international exchange programs would receive a 21 per cent cut, or a reduction to $501.3 million from the current funding level of $635 million. Overall the bill would cut approximately $100 billion from President Obama’s FY 2011 budget request, and about $61 billion from actual FY 2010 spending levels under the current continuing resolution (CR), which expires on March 4.
Earlier this week, the House Appropriations Committee previewed a spending bill to fund the remainder of the fiscal year that would cut $74 billion from the President’s overall FY 2011 budget request. The bill includes $46.9 billion for State-Foreign Operations, a four per cent cut from the current FY 2010 level and a 17 per cent reduction from the President’s FY 2011 request. (The U.S. Global Leadership Coalition calculates that this 4 per cent figure is “inaccurate” and, when enacted supplemental appropriations are taken into account, the cut is “at least 13 per cent from FY10 enacted levels, rather than a 4 per cent decrease.”)
In the midst of much negotiation and speculation about cuts to the FY 2011 budget, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), the newly-minted Ranking Member of the Senate State-Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee, told CNN’s John King that he wants his Congressional colleagues to “slow down, take a deep breath” and remember that smart power tools and the International Affairs Budget are critical to U.S. national security:
The U.S. Global Leadership Coalition (USGLC) reported last night on the “inaccuracy” of the House Appropriations Committee’s explanation of its cuts to the State-Foreign Operations budget.
