By choosing the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as its first target for demolition, Elon Musk’s DOGE made a savvy political decision. While the federal government’s gravy train of spending largesse usually has a beneficiary somewhere in America, USAID doesn’t — the foreign aid bureaus clients are mainly a group of “Beltway bandits,” or contracting companies expert mainly in winning grants. Who (other than maybe their own employees) would stand up for them?
Moreover, it’s not hard to make a case against USAID simply by highlighting its goofier or more outlandish projects, like street theater in Afghanistan and Djibouti to promote public sanitation processes. Or, more sinisterly, the Wuhan Institute of Virology…
I’m old enough to remember when former U.S. Senator John Kerry (D-Massachusetts), who later went on to be Barack Obama’s secretary of state and Joe Biden’s climate czar, was running for president against George W. Bush in 2004 and asked “why are we opening firehouses in Baghdad and shutting them down in the United States of America?” It was then a cheap shot against Bush, but an effective one.
While Sen. Kerry was windsurfing off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard in 2004, I was one of over 100,000 Americans hunkered down in Iraq. Occasionally stuff got blown up there. If the United States could be seen as helping people put the fires out, that was generally a good thing and made people like us a little bit more.
Still, foreign aid is almost never popular back at home, especially when budgets are stretched thin. The fact that it amounts to less than one percent of federal spending doesn’t make it any more popular, because faraway boondoggles make for an easy whipping boy. Street theater in Afghanistan is probably the last thing anyone wants to hear about these days.
Importantly, there come times when we want people in other countries to choose America over our rivals. The best example of this may be Africa, which is fast growing and one of the world’s greatest sources of mineral wealth — including all the metals and elements that go into cell-phones, computers and batteries. Over the past decade, China has been eating our lunch when it comes to influence in Africa (to be fair, Chinese citizens don’t get a vote when it comes to giving away foreign aid). Unlike China, America spent billions fighting HIV/AIDS in Africa, and we should get some credit for that.
As Ben Shapiro noted on Facebook yesterday, “the problem is, if you destroy USAID as a functioning agency, rather than going in with a scalpel, what you are actually doing is creating a dangerous vacuum.” Our geo-strategic rivals and enemies will be all to happy to fill that vacuum.
President Donald Trump suggested on Tuesday night that America re-build the Gaza Strip. While it was an idea he was floating rather than a concrete plan, if we actually were to lay any concrete in that war-torn patch of earth, how would we go about doing it? Probably via a government agency like USAID.
[RELATED: Trump Says U.S. Will Rebuild Gaza Strip]
One of the biggest recipient of U.S. assistance right now is Ukraine, and that country’s effort to drive back a Russian invasion is spluttering. With good reason, Americans are tired of forever wars, but folding the tents and handing Russia a win isn’t a wise alternative either — regardless of the moral case, we’d like get sucked into another conflict the next time they invade a European country. So there needs to be some mechanism for managing our commitments.
Folding USAID back into the State Department has been an idea on the table for decades, and it’s not a bad one. It will require intelligent follow-through. We should be evaluating all spending as the Trump Administration has suggested through the prism of whether it helps America or not. Yet in doing so, we should also be careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
I’m sorry Sam , but to keep running on the USAID treadmill is a waste of our money.
It’s insanity in choosing projects to support knows no limits . It is obviously Insanity in its simplest form .
Close it down . Close it down now . Send them all home . They are all duped puppets of the deep state cabal that we refer to as Washington .
If you are all worried about spending our tax dollars in a beauty / popularity contest with this CCP then start a NEW agency .
USAID in its present form needs to be closed .
They got lost! Poor leadership. Send them home. The good will survive as we are overall good people.
The time for low-energy, ineffective, half-measures and Orwellian double-speak is long gone! We need immediate, strong, ACTION such as we are seeing now! It has been far too many years that the American taxpayers have been slaving under this yoke of financial oppression, heaped upon us by career politicians who care little for our nation or its people but ARE concerned about their own personal gravy train! Let other nations consume and compromise their finances and materiel in third world hell-holes. We MUST concentrate on the issues within our own nation and rebuild our own infrastructure, to secure our own future as a nation!
USAID became a money laundering operation. If a friendly foreign country needs help, real help, they can ask and then they can reciprocate in some fashion but just sending billions to countries with no oversight and no idea where the money is really going needs to be done.
The whole thing needs to be shut down and influence peddling needs to be handled differently than it has been. It’s been a disaster.
Sorry Mr Patten ……We don’t need a scalpel we need an AXE . A giant axe.
Thirty Four MILLION dollars to Politico .
The Wave of Common Sense is breaking over America .
Ride the wave or drown in it , that’s your choice .
America has had ENOUGH of this Obama Biden BS .
USAID needs to be sent to the shredder .
I’m also old enough to remember when a Korean National thought I was CIA when I was visited by a USAID employee in the mid-70s. I wasn’t but he was likely right about the CIA/USAID connection back then.
Deep six that scamming, money laundering, CIA sponsored agency. Flush it down the memory hole.
Sorry Mr Sam Patten
Never use a scalpel when you need a wrecking ball .
Let’s get it done .
Enough of this nonsense .
Democrats send the rats the money and the rats send it back to the democrats in the form of campaign contributions . Rats can always recognize another rat .
Start a new fund / group / dept / whatever you think you need .
USAID IS DONE .
GONE .
Is there a site were we can see the list of recipients in Maine of USAID funds?
Why don’t you tell us about your efforts at promoting democracy in Ukraine ? You are part of the problem. Are you being paid by USAID ?
We need DOGE in Maine.
OK, so treat USAID like a cancer and use a scalpel. Just make sure you remove all of it or it will grow back. Then make sure you remove all the cancers in this diseased government.