Democrats play hardball with Central America aid request

Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) aren't ready to push President Obama's $1 billion aid request for Central America through Congress. In fact, they want to know where all the other money went. (They ask these questions about Iraq and Afghanistan too, don't they?)

"We've spent billions of dollars there over two decades," Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), ranking member of the Senate Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, told Secretary of State John F. Kerry. "And we've seen conditions get worse in Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador."

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But some lawmakers responded Tuesday that any U.S. aid program would need to overcome entrenched corruption in the region and noted the refusal of many wealthy families to spend their own money for the national good.

Private businesses in Central America "should be doing more," Leahy said. "They live behind walls. They don't pay taxes. If they don't live in Miami, they keep their money there."

"We can't just continue to layer aid programs," Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.) told Kerry in a subsequent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing. "We've had many programs in Central America and the results have been less than consequential."

Tripling aid will help at the margins. That's good. Let's direct the money towards strengthening CICIG in Guatemala and creating new ones for Honduras and El Salvador; helping entrepreneurs and various civil society groups; and some rule of law projects.

No one except Biden believes that the increased assistance will "the next great success story of the Western Hemisphere." As I wrote in July

The problems in Central America are immense. We need to consider deepening our already close economic relations, craft policies that facilitate migration between the US and the region, jointly invest billions of dollars in development projects, and enact drug policy reforms. I am afraid reforms short of these will probably just help at the margins.

Deeper reforms will require significant efforts by our allies and not so allies in the Northern Triangle and a US willingness to put trade, immigration, and drug policy reforms on the table.