RHETORIC vs. REALITY....George Bush loves to give speeches. Unfortunately, he's less enthusiastic about following through on the promises he makes in them. Here he is announcing his new Millenium Challenge Accounts on March 24, 2002:
Today, I call for a new compact for global development, defined by new accountability for both rich and poor nations alike....The United States will lead by example. We will increase our development assistance by $5 billion over the next three budget cycles. This new money is above and beyond existing aid requests in the current budget I submitted to the Congress.
As summarized by the Democratic Policy Committee, here's the GAO report released last week on how we're doing four budget cycles later:
The MCA has not contributed a single dollar of foreign assistance to a developing nation. Furthermore, the President has not requested the $5 billion per year he promised for the account in any of the four budgets he has submitted to Congress after he announced the initiative.
In other words, it was just political posturing. I'm sure we're all shocked. Michael Signer has more over at Democracy Arsenal.
—Kevin Drum 8:28 PM
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