Okay, everyone. Take a couple of deep breaths and step back. The current ragefest over USAID is doing no one any good – least of all Democrats, who need to think hard about whether spending millions of taxpayer dollars on Colombian transgender opera, condoms for Gaza, DEI promotions in Serbia and all the other ridiculous priorities already revealed and which will come to light is really the hill they should choose to die on.
First, it’s probably not constitutionally possible for the president to “abolish” USAID. Although created by executive order in 1961, it was later regularized by an act of Congress, so abolition would also require Congressional action. Second, it is probably constitutionally permissible for the president to alter and restrict USAID as he wishes; it is part of the Executive Branch which he heads, and such restructuring has already occurred several times in the past, both through executive orders and under the Foreign Affairs Reorganization and Restructuring Act of 1998. Not incidentally, that act also terminated both the US Information Agency and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, so there is some precedent for ending Federal Executive Agencies.
Why is this even happening? While foreign aid isn’t trivial, it represents far less of the Federal budget than many Americans think – in 2024, it took up a little more than 1% of the $6.1 trillion we spent. But a little or a lot, it’s not really popular. Since the 1970s there have been efforts to eliminate it, both well-reasoned and downright looney. The current effort falls into the former category because one must start somewhere, and USAID is very low-hanging fruit.
The rationale for USAID’s spending has always been entwined with national security. But sometimes the rationale is difficult to follow. Take Afghanistan: in 2024 USAID spent almost $600 million in that unhappy country. Much of it was for “humanitarian assistance,” which is believable, but the purpose for $26 million was “redacted” from reports. “Cooperating partners” was also redacted for about $190 million of expenditures. Why? Well, it might be a little hard to explain why we are paying, say, $103 million to the Taliban for who-knows-what after we were thrown out of the country in 2021. So how does paying off the Taliban enhance our national security exactly? USAID won’t say, possibly because it can’t without seeming feckless.
This sad and terrible story is repeated for almost every country in which USAID works. You know it; we’ve all seen the list. Yes, sometimes good things are done: HIV/AIDS programs in Africa have saved lives. Dry-land farming education programs have increased production and prevented starvation. But pushing DEI programs in Serbia, protecting gay rights in Bangladesh or funding sex-change surgeries and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala not only offends local sensibilities, it also threatens our country’s relationship with those states – a scold is rarely welcome, particularly if the scold is an outsider.
This is the root of the spending problem we have: a bloated Federal bureaucracy often loses sight of why it was created in the first place. As it grows, what it does daily crowds out focus on its founding principles. This is currently true across our Federal government: what was done last year is what must be done this year, plus a little more because, well, that’s what was done last year. It doesn’t matter where the money comes from. It doesn’t matter where the money goes. It doesn’t matter if the money achieves success. To a bureaucrat, what matters is that the money is spent, so that more money may be requested for the following fiscal year.
The problem is exacerbated by the incestuous relationship between many Federal agencies and the political machinery of the Left within the United States. In many cases the recipients of USAID funds are US-based nongovernmental organizations having a pronounced liberal-left slant. When I was working with USAID in Armenia, a favorite was George Soros’ brainchild, the “Open Societies” Institute. The United States profits less from these liaisons that our Progressive political minority – which is why the pearl-clutching over investigations into USAID’s spending priorities comes from that sector.
The pattern seems about to be repeated at the Department of Education, created in 1980 to improve the performance of our nation’s lowest-performing schools. Since then, it has persistently and vigorously failed its primary mission. The recently published “National Report Card” shows that once again, scores for reading and math – foundational for success in our modern world – have declined for both fourth and eighth graders nationwide since 2019. At the moment, both are just over 50% for both grades, with considerably lower performance for the lowest two quintiles – precisely the Department’s stated target for improvement. By any measure, the Department of Education has failed miserably in its stated mission.
But the usual Democrat suspects will howl their usual howls of doom and engage in their theatre-of-the-absurd tactics. They will move heaven and earth to put a halt to the whole process of dragging the corruption, bureaucratic bloat and general lack of concern for efficiency in handling the taxpayers’ funds into the light – before the entire public realizes that the ugliness we’ve all just glimpsed is the norm, not an aberration.
Which would once again prove Donald Trump not only right, but justified.
