No Aid to Egypt Now SATLOFF 9/13 (Robert; Executive Director The Washington Institute, Needed: High-Level U.S.

. Attention to the Dire Situation in Egypt, Policy Alert, http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC06.php?CID=1714) Neither Ambassador Taylor nor his well-respected counterpart in Cairo, U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson, has been dealt a hand that is strong enough to affect the pace and content of change in Egypt. The United States has virtually no economic leverage over the Egyptian government; disagreements between Cairo and Washington, and between the administration and Congress, have essentially suspended the U.S. aid program. Furthermore, military aid is a hollow lever, given that the Pentagon wants to sustain the U.S. relationship with the Egyptian armed forces at least as much -- if not more -- than the Egyptians themselves. In this environment, U.S. threats have limited utility. SQUO assistance is too small to link and was reprogrammed, not an increase SCHENKER 11 (David; Aufzien Fellow and Director Program on Arab Politics Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Egypts Enduring Challenges: Shaping the Post-Mubarak Environment, Policy Focus #110, April, http://washingtoninstitute.org/pubPDFs/PolicyFocus110.pdf) On February 17, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that $150 million in foreign assistance funding had been reprogramm[ed]to put ourselves in a position to support our transition [in Egypt] and assist with their economic recovery.170 While this assistance offers a good start, it falls woefully short in both economic and humanitarian terms for a country of 83 million people. and democracy assistance to Egypt has been trending down for years SCHENKER 11 (David; Aufzien Fellow and Director Program on Arab Politics Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Egypts Enduring Challenges: Shaping the Post-Mubarak Environment, Policy Focus #110, April, http://washingtoninstitute.org/pubPDFs/PolicyFocus110.pdf) The U.S. trend in recent years has been to reduce funding for democracy- and governance-related activities in Egypt. In 2008at the end of the Bush administration democracy and governance accounted for nearly $55 million; in 2009 only $20 million was provided for these activities. At the same time, funding for the grants administration program was reduced dramatically from $32 million in 2008 to $7 million in 2010.171 More problematic still, in 2009 the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) obliged Cairos demand that only NGOs registered with the Egyptian Ministry of Social Solidarity i.e., non-oppositionaffiliated NGOsbe eligible for grants.172 While in 2009 the State Departments Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) also administered civil society grants in Egypt worth $1.3 million, it is unclear whether these under-the-radar projects met even the low level of achievement of their higher-profile predecessors. 173 This present period of transition presents an opportunity for Washington to shift funding aggressively away from former regime/government NGOs (GONGOs) to local organizations not hand-selected by the former regime.