Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I looked it up. US AID's budget is bigger than Malta's GDP, and similar to Bosnia's GDP.

And?

Thank you for playing the statistics game "number versus percentage"

Yes USAIDs budget in terms of a number is big, but in terms of percent of the total US budget, it is small. US foreign aid is typically 1-2% of the federal budget.

https://www.crfb.org/blogs/breakdown-foreign-aid-obligations

The US is actually among the least generous donors globally as a percentage of GDP, even though that means because we are a wealthy country we give a lot in terms of absolute number.

" The U.S. is both generous and penurious—it provides more official government assistance than any other country, but considerably less as a portion of our national income. There is a broad international commitment (to which the U.S. has never pledged) that wealthy countries should annually provide 0.7% of GDP to assist developing countries. For 2023, five countries—Norway, Luxembourg, Sweden, Germany, and Denmark—met or exceeded that benchmark. The average for all wealthy nations is around 0.3%, with the U.S. ranking at the bottom."

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-is-us-foreign-assistance/#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20is%20both%20generous,that%20year%20was%20$47%20billion.

These statistics are exceedingly misleading because they don’t consider things like U.S. security assistance.

Anonymous wrote:I looked it up. US AID's budget is bigger than Malta's GDP, and similar to Bosnia's GDP.

And it is less than 1% of the federal budget. If you’re looking for ways to reduce USG spending, you need to look well beyond this one agency.

There are legal ways to reduce USAID staffing and budget. The administration isn’t using them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Usaid should be aiding American first

In what way should we be aiding America first? Republicans have no plan to do this.

NP. Agree with this. So first, keep all the staff and their salaries. Easy and a tiny drop in the bucket.
Then do an analysis on how much all the PROGRAMS are flowing out the door. I bet a lot of them are just repeat funding every year without a lot of scrutiny. Clamp down on those and just redirect the current staff (again, it's good for Americans to keep their employment) on the programs that help. Not like money to Israel which is rich already, etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think people are getting it - simply saying something is unconstitutional Trump is a despot isn't going to cut it.

The Democrats in Congress are going to have to get their lawyers to say - this is against the law and we are urging all USAID employees to report to work.

Those Inspector Generals that were fired? They should have shown up to work and filed for an injunction.

The one IG did show up and was physically removed from her office by security.

But why didn’t she go to court?

IG is

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I looked it up. US AID's budget is bigger than Malta's GDP, and similar to Bosnia's GDP.

And?

Thank you for playing the statistics game "number versus percentage"

Yes USAIDs budget in terms of a number is big, but in terms of percent of the total US budget, it is small. US foreign aid is typically 1-2% of the federal budget.

https://www.crfb.org/blogs/breakdown-foreign-aid-obligations

The US is actually among the least generous donors globally as a percentage of GDP, even though that means because we are a wealthy country we give a lot in terms of absolute number.

" The U.S. is both generous and penurious—it provides more official government assistance than any other country, but considerably less as a portion of our national income. There is a broad international commitment (to which the U.S. has never pledged) that wealthy countries should annually provide 0.7% of GDP to assist developing countries. For 2023, five countries—Norway, Luxembourg, Sweden, Germany, and Denmark—met or exceeded that benchmark. The average for all wealthy nations is around 0.3%, with the U.S. ranking at the bottom."

https://www.brookings.edu/articles/what-is-us-foreign-assistance/#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20is%20both%20generous,that%20year%20was%20$47%20billion.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Usaid should be aiding American first

What people don't understand is that the majority of foreign aid stays in America. If you send $100 million in weapons to Ukraine, most of those weapons are made by US companies and sold by US middlemen. The same for USAID. We aren't over there handing dollars to people. We buy US pharmaceuticals and hire US people to distribute them overseas - because there isn't enough demand for Malaria medicine in the US. When you stop doing that, you hurt pharmaceutical companies and US contractors who have hired US people.

The DC region is going to be hurt the worst.

You have tremendous bloodlust for Ukrainians dying. At no cost to Americans, right?

USAID needs to disappear anyway since it was one of JFK’s batshit EOs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Usaid should be aiding American first

In what way should we be aiding America first? Republicans have no plan to do this.

The entire rest of the government's job is to aid America first. USAID is the one small part which is designed to aid foreign countries in ways that help with our own national security (often by diminishing refugee flows so that those refugees don't destabilize trading partners or create refugees that come to the US), support allies involved in conflict (we are about to pour a lot of humanitarian aid into Gaza in order to stabilize and protect Israel, which we view as a key ally in the Middle East & also to stop a broader mid-East conflict in order to decrease inflation, for example, the Houthis blowing up ships of their coast has shifted global sea routes in a way that is making goods more costly for Americans. The Houthis will stop this when there is a Gaza cease-fire and humanitarian aid and reconstruction. Plus, the price of oil shoots way up if there is a conflict in the middle east, which would also be inflationary).

So, USAID is helping Americans. It's just not a first order effect.

If you think the USG should aid needy Americans, then the proper focus is why isn't the current USG domestic policy diminishing USG citizen needs -- why are Rs intent on taking away the child tax credit? why are they intent on taking away healthcare subsidies for US citizens? Rs aren't doing that because they gave too much money to USAID, they're doing that because they are philosophically opposed to helping US citizens in any way because they view the bottom 50% of the income strata as "takers not makers". To distract that 50% they are trying to make people believe that immigrants and foreign aid are the problem. They are not. Basic R philosophy is the problem.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No sympathy here. USAID was a major grift joke and most of the aid money ended up in pockets of local corrupt leaders and tribal chiefs. Add to that a very ideological bureaucracy.

I think foreign aid is important but it's worthwhile disbanding and rebuilding a donor agency from scratch. Not sure if the existing model can survive.

Tribal chiefs? I think we are catching a glimpse of the unfettered ignorant racism that is driving this agenda.

Why is that phrase racist in this context?

Anonymous wrote:Well DoT just put out a new order that said that they would provide more grants and funding to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average. The DOT order is called: Ensuring reliance on sound economic analysis in DOT's policies, programs, and activities.

Handmaid's society is coming. If you want women to have babies, this is not the way to do it -- there are other proposals that show that the Administration wants to punish single women with children -- look at their tax proposal eliminating the ability of single parents to file as head of household (which gives them a bigger standard deduction).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No sympathy here. USAID was a major grift joke and most of the aid money ended up in pockets of local corrupt leaders and tribal chiefs. Add to that a very ideological bureaucracy.

I think foreign aid is important but it's worthwhile disbanding and rebuilding a donor agency from scratch. Not sure if the existing model can survive.

Not you again. Don't you have a dog to kick or kid to yell at?

I’m not the PP but our acquaintance lost their job as a contractor from the EO.

They bragged for years about their travel all over the world to “educate” the locals on support distribution. But they openly joked by the time they “trained” someone in country and aid arrived (if ever) whomever they “trained” was long gone - so they got to go back 2-3 times to train (or not) to the same country and typically they planned stops on their way of places to visit.

I am not saying there was not some good being done; but maybe 1 out 20 dollars spent was of value from what I heard.

Then Congress should shut it down. This is about more than just the agency, it's about the U.S. straying from being a country of laws and separation of powers and moving to banana republic status.

The terrible thing about a democracy is that the voters can vote it all away if they choose. The electoral college went for banana republic. Confusing as that system to serve very very very few voters, if any, well.

Anonymous wrote:Fascism happening right in front of our eyes. That is not an exaggeration.

Two and it is about to get exponentially worse

Anonymous wrote:I looked it up. US AID's budget is bigger than Malta's GDP, and similar to Bosnia's GDP.

And?

Well DoT just put out a new order that said that they would provide more grants and funding to communities with marriage and birth rates higher than the national average. The DOT order is called: Ensuring reliance on sound economic analysis in DOT's policies, programs, and activities.

I looked it up. US AID's budget is bigger than Malta's GDP, and similar to Bosnia's GDP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't think people are getting it - simply saying something is unconstitutional Trump is a despot isn't going to cut it.

The Democrats in Congress are going to have to get their lawyers to say - this is against the law and we are urging all USAID employees to report to work.

Those Inspector Generals that were fired? They should have shown up to work and filed for an injunction.

The one IG did show up and was physically removed from her office by security.

But why didn’t she go to court?

What are you thinking she’s supposed to do? Walk into a courthouse and demand a judge issue an order? You know legal action takes time to initiate.