“Every long journey starts with a first step, and streamlining USAID is a sensible place to begin.”
WASHINGTON – In his latest piece for InsideSources’ DC Journal, Competitiveness Coalition Chair Scott Brown applauded the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) efforts to crack down on the wasteful spending that has plagued American taxpayers and consumers for decades, starting with USAID.
Brown began by highlighting the Trump administration’s stunning speed and progress towards these spending cuts, which polling shows that most Americans support: “The opening month of the second Trump administration has been marked by incredible speed and progress, especially toward their goal of scaling back the bloat of the federal government,” writes Brown, a former U.S. Senator and Ambassador. “On the list of pressing issues facing the country, most Americans would not identify the future of USAID, something many had likely never heard of, as top of mind. In fact, according to polling from the Associated Press, seven in 10 believe the government is spending too much on “assistance to other countries.”
Brown continues by pointing out some of the most egregious, and occasionally dangerous, uses of taxpayer dollars addressed by DOGE’s efforts to audit USAID: “Much of the fallout has focused on the more egregious examples of USAID waste. Items like $1.5 million to “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities,” $47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Colombia, and $2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala, according to the White House. The list goes on and can be as amusing as outrageous…In other instances, the misplaced spending is more sinister. Specific USAID spending appears to support terrorism. According to the Washington Free Beacon, six days before Hamas executed the worst terror attack in Israel’s history on October 7, 2023, USAID awarded $900,000 to a Gaza charity connected to the son of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.”
Brown concludes by chastising the Democratic Party for getting the country into this mess, and calls for more spending cuts to ensure that taxpayer dollars are used wisely and solely in the American interest: “No doubt, USAID has done some good on the world stage since its creation in 1961. Folding its responsibilities underneath the broader umbrella of the State Department can allow that positive output to continue in time. Even more glaring is the need to get tough on spending, a principle that used to be bipartisan. Remember Bill Clinton’s 1996 promise that the era of big government is over? Even Barack Obama launched a ‘Campaign to Cut Waste.’ Today’s Democratic Party is far from those days and even further from common sense. They believe the status quo and spending money like a drunken sailor, as the late John McCain was fond of saying, is perfectly acceptable. Every long journey starts with a first step, and streamlining USAID is a sensible place to begin.”
Read the full piece here.
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