Following a plan to jointly run a "Welcome to America" radio program with Socialist Republic of Vietnam officials, the Obama administration now expects U.S. taxpayers to help fund the information technology modernization of the Vietnam State Treasury, or VST.
A review of the FY 2015 appropriations bills and committee reports governing the Department of State and related agencies suggests there will be little, if any, opposition from Democrats and Republicans alike.
With the exception of small differences regarding the magnitude of funding, such foreign-assistance and corporate welfare handouts appear to be on track for continued congressional approval during the final two years of President Obama's second term.
The U.S. Trade & Development Agency – an independent White House agency that runs the program – recently issued a solicitation for bids to perform what is known as a "desk study" of its VST General Accounting and Capital Expenditures plan, which seeks to upgrade and modernize aspects of the Vietnam's government's financial IT system.
The agency in 2013 initially funded what is known as "definitional mission," or DM, to Vietnam to identify on behalf of the U.S. IT industry potential project opportunities in the communist nation.
Following the DM, USTDA began considering whether to fund a pair of more in-depth feasibility studies. One would support VST's development of a centralized software system and the other would focus on the development of an automated State General Accounting System for Vietnam.
The proposed desk study, whose cost was not disclosed, would review and possibly revise existing recommendations for future U.S.-funded activities. The Obama administration agreed to pay for the study at the request of the government of Vietnam, according to a contracting document WND located through routine database research.
More of the same under Obama
WND reported in August that the Voice of America was seeking a contractor to help deliver, in conjunction with Hanoi, a "Welcome to America" program to Vietnamese audiences that offers "a compilation of reports on current cultural, scientific, educational, social, arts and lifestyle activities in the United States."
The VOA endeavor, however, is only one of many dozens of Obama Vietnam policy programs falling under the State Department umbrella.
USTDA programs under Obama, for instance, have provided grants and technical assistance to Vietnam involving multiple industry sectors. Projects range from desk studies costing several thousand dollars to feasibility studies costing many hundreds of thousands.
Despite the arguably low cost of such programs, USTDA contractors in most instances are also required to assist recipient nations such as Vietnam in obtaining financing information from U.S-funded institutions such as the Export-Import Bank and the Overseas Private Investment Corporation.
A review of the historical data on aid to Vietnam shows a continuation of similar assistance provided under George W. Bush.
Indeed, the Bush administration is responsible for launching USTDA's Vietnam program in 2006. Representative examples of such Bush-era initiatives include a $453,400 grant given that year to Vietnam's State Capital Investment Corporation, which used the funds to identify financial and IT systems needed to manage state-owned assets.
The following year the agency awarded a pair of grants worth nearly $800,000 to provide Vietnam with assistance in "meeting the standards of a global e-commerce initiative for the airline industry and in designing a national finance statistics information system."
Instances of USTDA activities under Obama include, for example, a nearly $600,000 grant given in 2012 to the Saigon Water Supply Corporation to help develop an information and communication technology project for the Ho Chi Minh City Water Supply Network.
An approximately $50,000 payment in 2013 went to a contractor who traveled to Vietnam to assess potential banking industry IT-project opportunities, even though U.S. multinationals such as Oracle, IBM, Cisco, HP, already had “an active presence” there.
Congressional review
The House and Senate appropriations committees have issued reports calling on USAID to follow the lead of USTDA, which almost exclusively awards contracts to U.S. companies. Indeed, while USTDA projects are a form of foreign aid, the agency's mission is to simultaneously boost U.S. exports and not simply offer overseas assistance.
The House report says USTDA would be designated as the federal provider of "technical procurement advisory assistance and services for USAID and other federal agencies for middle income and lower income countries that need assistance developing and aligning their standards and regulations with the broader international community."
"The committee asserts that adopting international best practices focused on value-based procurement ultimately helps the long-term sustainability of USAID projects as well as furthers United States' investments."
As WND has reported, USAID often hands out contracts that exclude U.S. firms from participating, such as a $300 million Palestinian construction project.
Pervasively corrupt and often incompetent governmental bodies and utility providers in Africa likewise burden the U.S., particularly in aid programs such as Obama's multi-billion-dollar Power Africa initiative, which sets aside $285 million in technical assistance in a bureaucracy-laden effort.
The only other major difference between the president's FY 2015 budget request for USTDA and those proposed via committee reports in both chambers of Congress is a matter of no more than $10 million in annual funding.
The administration, for example, seeks $67.7 million for USTDA. The House wants to give it $57 million, while the Senate proposes $60 million.
While USTDA arguably is a relatively small agency, it consistently undergoes criticism along with calls for closure that are unheeded. Former Republican Rep. Ron Paul and libertarian think tanks such as the Cato Institute regularly denounce it as among the most wasteful of all federal entities.
USTDA, Ex-Im Bank and OPIC are among the most egregious examples of "corporate welfare waste," the Cato Institute concluded in a 2005 report. These and similar organizations "should be terminated," the report contended.
Vietnam could receive as much as $113 million in government-wide FY 2015 aid under the White House plan, about $10 million less than last year and $20 million less than the most recent high of $134 million in FY 2010.