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Ending plunder and grift at USAID
Washington Examiner ^ | February 4, 2025 2:06 pm | Hugo Gurdon

Posted on 02/04/2025 11:51:38 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum

Guatemalan transgender organizations scooped $2 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development, and oxymoronic diversity, equity, and inclusion “scholarships” in Burma took another $45 million. Advancing DEI in Serbian workplaces was financed with $1.5 million, and $47,000 was found for a transgender opera in Colombia.

These and many other left-wing grifts are being brought to light by early Trump administration moves to get bloated federal spending under control. It is incontestable that such egregiously unnecessary programs richly deserve the chop. But there is a yawning abyss between the thousands, millions, and even billions of dollars wasted on them and the $2 trillion that Elon Musk wants to cut with the sharp edge of the Department of Government Efficiency.

If the axman severed every USAID program and nothing else, it would save only $40 billion a year. Although taxpayers would applaud, the improvement to public finances would be almost undetectably small. America would keep hurtling toward insolvency. Doing easy things, taking a win, and walking away leaving really difficult stuff untouched will be tempting, but it is a temptation that must be resisted.

Absurd programs draw disproportionate attention and invite justified outrage precisely because of their triviality. Where they are not pernicious, they are obviously frivolous. A well-governed nation, especially one living beyond its means as America is, would drop them without hesitation or a backward glance. But they are not the substantive danger to the nation’s finances. That comes, rather, from massive entitlements such as Medicare, Social Security, Medicaid, and food stamps. Means-tested social welfare spending reached $1.6 trillion in 2023 and needs cutting immediately. Social Security and Medicare are dire problems that must be dealt with immediately afterward.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonexaminer.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Government; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS:

1 posted on 02/04/2025 11:51:38 AM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
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To: All

2 posted on 02/04/2025 11:52:42 AM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either opinion, or satire, or both.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

It is just amazing what is being uncovered.


3 posted on 02/04/2025 11:54:01 AM PST by Parley Baer
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
"Ending plunder and grift at USAID"

Keep it simple - End the USAID.

4 posted on 02/04/2025 11:56:18 AM PST by budj (Combat vet, 2nd of 3 generations.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I hope all the amounts cut are posted on the DOGE website.


5 posted on 02/04/2025 11:56:42 AM PST by ActresponsiblyinVA
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Plunder, grift, and anti-Trump Resistance


6 posted on 02/04/2025 12:02:33 PM PST by bigbob (Yes. We ARE going back!)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I dont care if “some” of the money at USAID was actually going to help poor people in Africa!!!

HOW ABOUT HELPING POOR PEOPLE IN AMERICA!


7 posted on 02/04/2025 12:02:34 PM PST by TexasFreeper2009
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Stop sending them expensive Trojans!!! Send them penny pieces of Bazooka Bubble Gum!!! Let them chew that!


8 posted on 02/04/2025 12:05:33 PM PST by FlingWingFlyer (If Trump gets elected, we're all going to hang.- Hillary "The Wanderer" Clintoon.)
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To: TexasFreeper2009

Like in destroyed areas of NC and TN.


9 posted on 02/04/2025 12:08:17 PM PST by madison10
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“If the axman severed every USAID program and nothing else, it would save only $40 billion a year.”

A journey of 1000 miles begins with one small step. This taxpayer says shut down USAID, ax all of the USAID programs, delete $40 billion per year from the budget forever, and move quickly to the next department. The must be billions more of low hanging fruit at the EPA, Department of Education, Department of Energy, Department of Defense, HUD, HHS, and the rest.

The Biden budget for the current year 2025 calls for spending of $7.028 trillion versus revenue of $5.16 trillion leaving a deficit of $1.865 trillion. The last federal budget before Covid blew the lid of spending, was $4.4 trillion in 2019. If Trump and Elon cut spending in fiscal year 2025 to match projected revenue of $5.16 the government will spend 17% more in fiscal 2025 than it did in fiscal 2019 pre Covid. How many households in America have 17% more income this year than they had in 2019? I somehow suspect if you picked 10 hard working US citizens randomly, gave them the budget information, and asked them to make the cuts needed to bring 2025 spending in line with revenue, they could do it in less than 24 hours.


10 posted on 02/04/2025 12:14:01 PM PST by Soul of the South (The past is gone and cannot be changed. Tomorrow can be a better day if we work on it.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum; Red Badger
I got curious again as I have in the past about where all the government money goes. I offer the following to maybe make it a bit easier on the curious like me who also gets wound up going down rat holes. All the incriminating evidence is available to those who have time to look but incrimination is a fool's errand for those without audience or authority to investigate, prosecute and convict or correct. The government is obligated to provide the information but not to make it easy to either find or understand. You have heard about some of the spending adventures of the USAID slush fund such as how money got from USAID to Rockefeller to Bill Kristol and even Soros and many other important things like Condoms for Gaza. General Flynn points out that HHS is probably much worse as a slush fund for political agendas.

You may have also seen the posting on X by someone calling himself General Mike Flynn regarding the HHS slush fund to various NGO outfits in support of illegals.

https://x.com/GenFlynn/status/1884776024929415664/photo/1

Note that the data is down to the Congressional District supported by HHS. How convenient to know where the bread is buttered.

I got curious about the source of this information so I went looking and met the same level of frustration I have in times past when I went on safari to the .gov budget and spending sites. Musk and his merry men have said that the .gov computer system is antiquated, not so much so as intentionally difficult. All the data is there by law but the law does not say the .gov has to make it easy for you to mine the data. I gave up trying to reproduce this table of Flynn's from usaspending.gov. Here is the tip of the iceberg from my adventure. It is a lot like the cavernous warehouse the Ark went to in Indiana Jones. The number of sub-departments and agencies in each major entity is in the hundreds each having their own little bureaucrat caretaker.

https://www.usaspending.gov/agency/agency-for-international-development?fy=2025§ion=award-spending

You may wonder how a budget of $892 Million can handle awards of $8.39 Billion? So do I. Just another one of those government speak mysteries explained in the fine print somewhere I suppose.

Update! I found at least one of the keys to mining the data. Search by entity that money has been paid to.

https://www.usaspending.gov/recipient

Like the Pentecostal preacher who was given land north of town where Exxon drilled two big wells said, God has been good and he bought a new parsonage and SUV. Nearly $700 million a year good in FY '24 for the Catholic Bishops in just the last three years or so.

https://www.usaspending.gov/recipient/2a706a17-b53d-3f3e-64c2-5b0166d343f1-R/latest

Just so nobody is left out:

https://www.usaspending.gov/recipient

The data is all there, you just have to know how to find it. There are many more who have received interesting (?) and exceptionally large government largess in the last three years.

A second search for the table shown using various search headings led me to the HHS site. Volia! I don't know if HHS should be next on the hit list or if there are other much worse actors; maybe the nearly $Trillon the DoD audit can't account for? I think USAID is not so big but instead the link to political operatives funding and thus a great first target. Nonetheless, I found this site from HHS that does reproduce some of the table General Flynn offered. It is a little easier to mine but still not the USAID data:

https://taggs.hhs.gov/Detail/CFDADetail?arg_CFDA_NUM=93576

Notice the wiggly lines so biden doesn't look so tall. The vast government conspiracy is managed by lots of little people in every corner of it always thinking of the boss.

The similar site for USAID is now closed so this is as far as I went.

I am still suspicious of Musk but happy he has assembled a group of 19 to 24 year-old whiz kids to mine this data that is hidden so carefully and completely in plain sight. The system is so vast and compartmentalized only a few can even fathom the edges of it. It reminds me of the $100 bill test of policy manuals. Stash that bill in the pages of such a manual or the back corners of a library and wait to see how many years pass before the bill is found.

11 posted on 02/04/2025 12:15:12 PM PST by Sequoyah101 (Donald John Trump. First man to be Elected to the Presidency THREE times since FDR.)
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To: FlingWingFlyer

Stop sending them expensive Trojans!!!

><

I heard this morning that the terrorists in Gaza and elsewhere use condoms in some kinds of explosive devices.
That explains why USAID was sending them condoms.


12 posted on 02/04/2025 12:18:39 PM PST by laplata (They want each crisis to take the greatest toll possible.)
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To: BenLurkin

Post #10, 11, begin to answer the question I was going to ask.
So yes, USAID is not even the tip of the iceberg, it is only a solitary rain-drop falling on the iceberg below.
Looking forward to Trump/DOGE being blamed for the rise in unemployment among former fed. employees at MANY more agencies.
Maybe they can be transferred to ICE, or just learn to pick crops in place of the illegals.
Too many will be found to belong in prison.


13 posted on 02/04/2025 12:48:48 PM PST by Ex gun maker. (Free thinking is now a radical concept, I will not be assimilated by PC or EV group-think!)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“it would save only $40 billion a year”


14 posted on 02/04/2025 12:58:21 PM PST by Brian Griffin
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To: laplata

THEY FILL THE CONDOMS WITH HELIUM & ATTACH EXPLOSIVES & FLOAT THEM OVER TO ISRAEL WHEN THE WIND IS RIGHT.


15 posted on 02/04/2025 12:59:45 PM PST by ridesthemiles (not giving up on TRUMP---EVER)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum
Foreign aid and money laundering
16 posted on 02/04/2025 1:01:55 PM PST by mjp (pro-freedom & pro-wealth $)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Sometimes, it is profitable to bribe foreign leaders or Orgs to advance US goals.
But USAID somehow lost that purpose a long time ago!


17 posted on 02/04/2025 2:04:06 PM PST by AZJeep
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To: ridesthemiles

Thanks for that.


18 posted on 02/04/2025 10:13:32 PM PST by laplata (They want each crisis to take the greatest toll possible.)
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