Less than a week in and we’re already seeing why President Trump’s freeze on foreign aid was necessary to begin with.
Yes, the Trump administration’s incendiary claims of having blocked $50 million for condoms in Gaza have come under scrutiny and look to be (at the very least) overstated.
To which we can only say: whew.
$50 million mulcted from taxpayers and set to be used to make sure there are enough prophylactics to go around in an America-hating polity allied with our greatest regional enemy, Iran would have been insane.
But the waste-a-palooza goes far beyond putative Trojans for terrorists.
To get a glimpse of the truly dumb stuff our foreign aid dollars get spent on, consider State Department staffers’ waiver requests (dug up by the indispensable Washington Free Beacon) submitted to save programs they considered worthy of the freeze.
Like $21.7 million for the Bureau for Resilience, Environment, and Food Security, an outfit at USAID focused on “equity and environmental justice through the empowerment of marginalized and underrepresented populations.”
Boy, just what America needs to win in strategic contests with China, Russia and Iran!
Or $62.7 million for the Bureau for Inclusive Growth, Partnerships, and Innovation, which (in the words of the request) “leads in carrying out key Agency priorities, including pursuing gender equality and inclusive development.”
It’s bad enough that big corporations wasted money on jargon-powered nonsense like this; sticking taxpayers with the bill for it is obscene.
These are the rich little fiefdoms of career bureaucrats, and the frightened whining about funding cuts arises from their self-interest — not America’s or its taxpayers’.
As the White House continues to trim the fat abroad and at home, it’s important to treat the squeals of protest for what they are: noise from an increasingly nervous pork pen.
