Think an Obama Administration would spell an upwards march on the US aid budget? Think again.
The Obama / Biden campaign platform is formally committed to a doubling of US foreign assistance to $50 billion (which by my calculations works out at 0.36% of US gross national income – still a way off from the 0.7 target, but hey).
But now, it looks as though that commitment got dropped – in a little-noticed part of the Vice-Presidential debate between Biden and Palin on October 3. The debate chair asked:
“What promises — given the events of the week, the bailout plan, all of this, what promises have you and your campaigns made to the American people that you’re not going to be able to keep?”
And the very first thing that Joe Biden said in his reply was this:
“Well, the one thing we might have to slow down is a commitment we made to double foreign assistance. We’ll probably have to slow that down.”
And that was it; no explanation, no regrets, just a bald statement – a blunt demonstration of the relative weakness of the development lobby in the US.
