Frost Warns Super Committee Deadlock Could Impact Aid to Israel

David Streeter — August 11, 2011 – 3:17 pm | Congress | Foreign Policy | Israel Comments (1) Add a comment

NJDC Executive Committee member and former Representative Martin Frost wrote today in Politico that if the super committee tasked with cutting federal spending becomes deadlocked, foreign assistance to Israel will be caught up in the 9% across-the-board cut that is built in to the rules sanctioning the committee.

Frost wrote:

The House and Senate members of the new bipartisan deficit reduction super committee have now been named and they may soon start hearing from some unexpected voices. Let’s call them the nine-per centers.

If the committee should deadlock, or if Congress rejects its recommendations, a wide range of federal beneficiaries would confront a 9 percent across-the-board, line-by-line cut on their appropriations come Jan. 1, 2013.

That’s the default position on how you get to the $1.2 trillion over 10 years in the second round of budget cuts specified by Congress when it passed the debt ceiling increase on Aug. 2.

And:

For example, the 9 percent across-the-board cut would apply to the largest single beneficiary of our foreign aid - Israel. More than 80 members of Congress are due to visit Israel during the August recess. Washington gives the Jewish state $3 billion a year in military and economic assistance - so a 9 percent cut would be $270 million.

Click here to read Frost’s full article.

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