Democrats turned back a late-breaking Republican effort to punish the Organization of American States for its support of ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya (pictured here). $49B foreign aid budget clears House

A record $49 billion State Department and foreign aid budget cleared the House Thursday evening after Democrats turned back a late-breaking Republican effort to punish the Organization of American States for its support of ousted Honduran president Manuel Zelaya.

Cuban-American conservatives were prominent players behind the motion which sought to cut $15 million from U.S. contributions to the OAS and move the money instead to the National Endowment for Democracy. Rep Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R., Fla.) led her colleagues in chants of "Nada" to the OAS, and Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R., Fla.) said the protest reflected a broader anger toward the OAS in regards to its treatment of the Castro regime in Cuba and Venezuela President Hugo Chavez.


"They are basically at the call of Chavez," Diaz-Balart told POLITICO. "It's not just the Honduran situation."

But the vote's timing— amid continued turmoil in Honduras and new talks in Costa Rica Thursday to resolve the crisis- made it difficult to separate the two events.

In a scathing response, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D, Cal.) said Republicans were only cloaking their real purpose by not speaking directly of the June 28 military coup which removed the leftist Zelaya.

"The real agenda here is cause some people here don't care that people they like better in a country called Honduras...are willing to resort to a military coup and a totally anti-democratic approach to changing leadership," Berman told the House "They are embarrassed to be associated with a military coup."

"The party proposing this motion.is the same party that held the White House for eight years while our policy and relationships toward the entire Latin American region so degraded our reputation and effectiveness that they should be embarrassed to be making suggestions''

Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake, one of just two Republicans to go against his leadership on the 233-192 vote, agreed. "It didn't make sense that we should move money from the OAS to the National Endowment for Democracy because we were supportive of the military coup," Flake told POLITICO. "I don't know. It seemed a little strange to me."

The underlying 2010 budget bill represents a departure from past foreign aid budgets in that President Barack Obama has sought to wrap in Iraq and Afghanistan aid previously treated as outside emergencies under his predecessor, former President George W. Bush.

The picture is further complicated by the fact that Democrats used a wartime spending bill last month to front load about $2.5 billion from the 2010 budget into the current fiscal year. And both parties have manipulated the numbers to gain advantage.

Republicans peg the bill as a 33% increase; Democrats say it is actually less than what has already been appropriated for the same accounts for the current fiscal year ending Sept, 30.

In truth, when the different pieces are lined up in order, the increase appears to be in the range of 7%. Much as they complained about the cost, a solid bloc of 76 Republicans supported the measure on the final 318-106 vote.

The 3-1 margin contrasts with much narrower votes in the past on foreign aid and reflects both the power of the pro-Israel lobby and the legacy of Bush, who convinced many in his party to be more supportive of foreign aid. Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor, the House Republican whip, voted for passage, for example, as did Rep. Pete Sessions (R., Tex.) who chairs the National Republican Congressional Committee, the party's campaign committee.