fishonjazz
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Good old Bernie
Trump Dictatorship and All Things Politics
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USAID's foreign aid comes from US farms. Now $450 million of food is left to rot. | Opinion
As the leader of the USAID humanitarian assistance for three years, I'm no stranger to the vital impact that USAID has on the lives of Americans.
www.usatoday.com
U.S. Agency for International Development employees who showed up Monday at their headquarters in Washington, D.C., were turned away because the Trump administration canceled USAID's lease. This is less than a month after the president signed an executive order ceasing all foreign aid ‒ setting off a cascade of suffering as millions of people worldwide are cut off from lifesaving work.
What most Americans don’t realize is that when USAID doors were shuttered, businesses across America also lost valuable income, and thousands of American citizens lost their own livelihoods.
As the leader of the agency’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance for three years, I am no stranger to the vital impact that USAID has on the lives of people around the world. But I am also no stranger to the vital impact that USAID has on the lives of Americans.
USAID sources food aid directly from American farmers
When USAID provides food aid to people in need, we source 41% of that food directly from American farmers ‒ approximately $2 billion in food aid purchased from American farms in states across the country: everything from wheat from Kansas, soybean oil from Iowa to peanut products from Georgia.Now, these American-grown products are at risk of being wasted.
The food has been purchased, but in the cruelty and chaos of the closure of USAID, those responsible for getting the food to the most needy are not getting paid: putting both the world’s poorest and American farms at risk.
And while some lifesaving food programs have received waivers in the past week, U.S. government funds remain unavailable.
In one instance, almost $200 million in emergency food aid bound for South Sudan ‒ where 729,000 children under five suffer from severe acute malnutrition ‒ is sitting undelivered in ports in Kenya.
Humanitarian partners, private contractors in the United States are now on furlough
On top of this, USAID works directly with humanitarian partners and private contracting companies based in the United States. These companies collectively employ thousands of American workers, many of whom have been furloughed ‒ with no knowledge of where their next paycheck will come from.They come from all walks of life, and they are some of the most dedicated and patriotic Americans I’ve ever known. These men and women are doctors and nurses; social workers and wildland firefighters; logisticians and agronomists. About 12% are military veterans who, at USAID, found a way to continue public service when they left the military.
No matter their role, these folks share a simple mission: They came to work every day to help people and to save lives. They did this in challenging circumstances, far away from home. On behalf of the American people, they worked around the clock, often deploying with less than 24 hours notice to some of the most difficult and dangerous environments in the world – including in war zones.
During my time leading the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance – and indeed, for decades before I came to USAID – Republicans and Democrats in Congress continuously supported USAID on a bipartisan basis. People in both parties agreed that providing aid to communities in their moments of greatest need is the right thing to do, and the smart thing as well – because it makes us safer, healthier and more prosperous here at home.
Supporters included new Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who's also now acting director of USAID.
When USAID teams responded to Ebola in Congo and Uganda, they helped contain the disease's spread ‒ protecting Americans, too. When USAID teams responded to biblical flooding in Pakistan, they created the goodwill that reopened diplomatic channels critical to national security.
I was proud to do this work: work that saved millions of lives and showed the goodness of the American people, and work that united people across the aisle. USAID efforts were celebrated on both sides because they not only showed the world our compassion but also projected our power – improving our national security, advancing stability and opening markets for American businesses in the process.
Now, these patriotic Americans and their partners are sidelined and maligned. In a workforce of 13,000 only about 300 have been told they will keep their jobs. Of those, only a few dozen remain who specialize in lifesaving humanitarian assistance.
The entire USAID website has gone dark. Our partner staff in crisis zones around the world are not getting paid, including for work that they have already done. And conspiracy theories about the work of the agency, boosted by our adversaries, threaten the safety of them and their families.
The dedicated public servants of USAID serve throughout different administrations, and they know that elections have consequences. They know that with new presidents there will be new approaches. And indeed there are opportunities to make the work more efficient.
There are lawful ways to realign priorities and even downsize. But this shock-and-awe, razed-earth strategy to eliminate USAID ‒ without the input of the people’s representatives in Congress ‒ is not it.
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fishonjazz
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When the pain hits home, Republicans balk at Trump's spending cuts and tariffs
From reducing NIH funding to slashing USAID to new tariffs, Republican lawmakers are beginning to speak out — carefully — against some of Trump's actions.
Among the top 20 states that take more money from the federal government than they sent in tax payments, 13 are solidly red states that voted for Trump in the last three elections, according to an analysis by the Rockefeller Institute of Government of the fiscal 2024 budget. Meanwhile, the top five states (and nine of the top 10) that send more money to the Treasury Department than they receive voted for Democrats in the last three presidential elections.
Another imperative for Republicans in rural areas is to protect farmers, who rely on the federal government as a major customer. The U.S. Agency for International Development, which Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk have targeted for dismantling, administers the Food for Peace program, under which the government buys and distributes American crops to help fight hunger around the world.
“For 70 years, Kansas and American farmers have played an active role in sending their commodities to feed malnourished and starving populations around the world. This free gift from the American people is more than food. It’s diplomacy and feeds the most vulnerable communities,” Rep. Tracey Mann, R-Kan., said in a statement.
Mann, whose office said the program has “fed more than 4 billion people in more than 150 countries,”
Mitch McConnell warned that slapping tariffs could have negative consequences for “our state’s 75,000 family farms that sell their crops around the globe, or the hardworking Kentuckians who craft 95% of the world’s bourbon, or our auto industry.”
“In Kentucky, local storeowners are already hearing about their suppliers’ prices going up. One estimate suggests the president’s tariffs could cost the average Kentuckian up to $1,200 each year,” McConnell wrote. “And it’s not just about rising prices here at home. During the last Trump administration, retaliatory tariffs from trade partners set off a broader trade war that hit wide swaths of American industry, from agriculture to manufacturing to aerospace and motor vehicles to distilled spirits. Already, Canada announced retaliatory measures that take direct aim at Kentucky production, targeting products like peanut butter and whiskey.”
There may be more tension on the horizon between Trump and Republicans in Congress, as the president has frozen grant funding under two laws enacted by President Joe Biden, for infrastructure money and clean energy credits like on electric vehicles. Both of those laws have delivered significant money to red states.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the vice chair of the Appropriations Committee that oversees government funding, said Trump should go about his attempts to slash or freeze money in a different way: by winning congressional approval first.
“Running farmers out of business, derailing infrastructure projects, cutting cancer research and killing good-paying clean energy jobs isn’t just unpopular, it’s devastating for working people everywhere — and it is time Trump reverses his illegal funding freeze and DOGE cuts in their entirety,” Murray told NBC News. “Trump’s policies are hurting communities and families in red states and blue states. If Trump and Elon want to cut funding for cancer research and infrastructure projects, they need to send us a proposal and try and win the votes in Congress to do it.”
trump acts like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president.
From the comments: Not one Republican is volunteering to have less money spent in their state or district. The GOP believes they can cut programs like USAID and only hurt Democrats. Nope, lots of Republicans benefit from spending even if the program seems liberal. It's clear that that GOP didn't think their rhetoric through.
Most of these kinds of programs are liberal. The problem is that most of the recipients are conservative.
D
Deleted member 365
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Imagine if a Democrat did this with George Soros…
Wonder why they want to remove mentioning Tesla? Could it be because Elon doesn’t have the same shine and cult following as Donald?
Wonder why they want to remove mentioning Tesla? Could it be because Elon doesn’t have the same shine and cult following as Donald?
D
Deleted member 365
Guest
Sounds like Kash Patel lied about pushing Jan 6 investigators out.
This seems to be more important than what Kamala Harris thinks about chatter GPT. But what do I know?
This seems to be more important than what Kamala Harris thinks about chatter GPT. But what do I know?
TheStormofWar
Well-Known Member
Aight, so if you had Jingoism, mass tanking of a healthy job market, and bypassing security standards that were somewhat lax to begin with for MIS systems, go ahead and mark those off on your Bingo card. Ah hell, we doing Blackout baby!
TheStormofWar
Well-Known Member
Nope, sorry. Folks who voted for the Mango Mussolini don't get to bitch. They voted for it despite being warned. They get to have their face eaten off by the Leopard.When the pain hits home, Republicans balk at Trump's spending cuts and tariffs
From reducing NIH funding to slashing USAID to new tariffs, Republican lawmakers are beginning to speak out — carefully — against some of Trump's actions.www.yahoo.com
Among the top 20 states that take more money from the federal government than they sent in tax payments, 13 are solidly red states that voted for Trump in the last three elections, according to an analysis by the Rockefeller Institute of Government of the fiscal 2024 budget. Meanwhile, the top five states (and nine of the top 10) that send more money to the Treasury Department than they receive voted for Democrats in the last three presidential elections.
Another imperative for Republicans in rural areas is to protect farmers, who rely on the federal government as a major customer. The U.S. Agency for International Development, which Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk have targeted for dismantling, administers the Food for Peace program, under which the government buys and distributes American crops to help fight hunger around the world.
“For 70 years, Kansas and American farmers have played an active role in sending their commodities to feed malnourished and starving populations around the world. This free gift from the American people is more than food. It’s diplomacy and feeds the most vulnerable communities,” Rep. Tracey Mann, R-Kan., said in a statement.
Mann, whose office said the program has “fed more than 4 billion people in more than 150 countries,”
Mitch McConnell warned that slapping tariffs could have negative consequences for “our state’s 75,000 family farms that sell their crops around the globe, or the hardworking Kentuckians who craft 95% of the world’s bourbon, or our auto industry.”
“In Kentucky, local storeowners are already hearing about their suppliers’ prices going up. One estimate suggests the president’s tariffs could cost the average Kentuckian up to $1,200 each year,” McConnell wrote. “And it’s not just about rising prices here at home. During the last Trump administration, retaliatory tariffs from trade partners set off a broader trade war that hit wide swaths of American industry, from agriculture to manufacturing to aerospace and motor vehicles to distilled spirits. Already, Canada announced retaliatory measures that take direct aim at Kentucky production, targeting products like peanut butter and whiskey.”
There may be more tension on the horizon between Trump and Republicans in Congress, as the president has frozen grant funding under two laws enacted by President Joe Biden, for infrastructure money and clean energy credits like on electric vehicles. Both of those laws have delivered significant money to red states.
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the vice chair of the Appropriations Committee that oversees government funding, said Trump should go about his attempts to slash or freeze money in a different way: by winning congressional approval first.
“Running farmers out of business, derailing infrastructure projects, cutting cancer research and killing good-paying clean energy jobs isn’t just unpopular, it’s devastating for working people everywhere — and it is time Trump reverses his illegal funding freeze and DOGE cuts in their entirety,” Murray told NBC News. “Trump’s policies are hurting communities and families in red states and blue states. If Trump and Elon want to cut funding for cancer research and infrastructure projects, they need to send us a proposal and try and win the votes in Congress to do it.”
trump acts like a king because he is too weak to govern like a president.
From the comments: Not one Republican is volunteering to have less money spent in their state or district. The GOP believes they can cut programs like USAID and only hurt Democrats. Nope, lots of Republicans benefit from spending even if the program seems liberal. It's clear that that GOP didn't think their rhetoric through.
Most of these kinds of programs are liberal. The problem is that most of the recipients are conservative.
Mongoose
Well-Known Member
There you go spreading lies from propaganda outlets again. The Biden administration orchestrated the armored EV contract, the State Dept has put the contract on hold, and there was only one bidder on the contract during the Biden administration — Tesla.
It was a procurement forecast under Biden because what the military needs is a bunch of electric vehicles because "climate change" and there are plenty of electric charging stations in syria and ethiopia and other countries we are illegally occupying.
View: https://x.com/4Mischief/status/1890234319723278593
View: https://x.com/BreitbartNews/status/1890085694284132705