House Republicans Seek to Slash Foreign Aid

America’s aid to foreign nations represents a key issue, given the turmoil in Egypt and elsewhere during recent weeks.

The new House Republican majority proposes putting President Barack Obama’s State Department funding and foreign aid requests together with “non-security” domestic spending and cutting allocations to 2008 levels, Politico reports.

The result could be a $16 billion, or nearly one-third, decrease in money available to the State Department, which would be in competition against domestic programs also facing cutbacks.

The aftermath of the Iraq war and the conduct of the Afghanistan war would be directly affected.

It’s a sharp reversal of the activist Bush-era philosophy that the State Department represents a crucial component of the national security budget.