“They [Congress] seemed, some little while ago, to be at a loss for objects whereon to throw away the supposed fathomless funds of the treasury.”—Thomas Jefferson
Your tax dollars at work:
--$43 million on a gas station in Afghanistan that had no customers;
--$1.5 million to promote LGBT Jamaicans. That’s more money than some Americans earn in their entire working careers;
--$4 million for trans Serbians;
--$5.5 million for gay rights in Uganda;
--$17 million for Vietnam “inclusion”;
--$25 million to promote “green transportation” in Georgia;
--$1 million for Arab and Jewish photographers;
--$8 million to teach Sri Lankan journalists how to avoid “binary-gendered language.”
That’s just a small sampling of some of where USAID, or better, where U.S. taxpayers’ money went through USAID. And that’s just USAID. That doesn’t include waste like the $118,000 National Science Foundation study on finger-snapping, which concluded that “varying degrees of friction between the fingers alters…performance of a snap.” Who’d thunk it? And I REALLY wanted to know that…
Of course, the federal government has been wasting Americans’ money for a long time. A few decades ago, Martin Gross wrote a book about it (“Government Racket: Washington Waste from A to Z”) with dozens of such “finger snapping” examples. It’s been happening for—well, read the Thomas Jefferson quote at the beginning of this column again. Apparently, Congress has been doing it for over 200 years. And nobody has ever done anything about it. Trump said he would in his first term, but he didn’t. He seems more serious about it now. So far, so good.
I haven’t looked through USAID’s entire budget, and there actually may be some “good” work in it; I consider none of the above listed as worthy of one dime of my money. In fact, I’m revolted by all of it. But I’m not surprised by any of it.
However, the first and most important question to me is the constitutionality of all of this “aid.” James Madison wrote, ”The government of the United States is a definite government, confined to specified objects. It is not like the state governments, whose powers are more general. Charity is no part of the legislative duty of the government.” He further said, “I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” That’s pretty clear, and if anybody ought to know what the Constitution means, it’s James Madison. He wrote the bloody thing.
“Doing good” is NOT the standard of Constitutionality or the standard upon which to base what the federal government spends money on. Article 1, Section 8 is. But Congress pays absolutely no attention—zero, zilch—to the Constitution regarding how it spends money. In fiscal matters, the U.S. government departed from the Constitution, well, apparently in Madison and Jefferson’s day, or they wouldn’t have said the things they said in the quotes I’ve given. They complained about it in their day. Whether USAID does any “good” or not is wholly irrelevant regarding its Constitutional authority even to exist, much less spend my money. But I’m spitting on the California fires here, and I know it. But still, somebody needs to say it.
Of course, the matters I listed above--$100,000 here, a few million there—are pennies compared to the trillions in the budget, which is far less than the government actually spends. I have no issue with (some) Defense Department expenditures because that is actually something the Constitution gives Congress the right to do—protect Americans from enemies without and within. However, so many other “big ticket” items in the budget are NOT in the Constitution, the biggest being Social Security, Medicare, welfare, education, and related matters. Trump has said he won’t touch Social Security and Medicare. He probably won’t be able to make much of a dent in welfare, either, and the Left will fight him, tooth and nail, on education. These are political battles now when they should be cultural and moral concerns. But we’re losing the cultural and moral war and have for a long time. Read the USAID list again to see that.
The Founding Fathers did not give Congress the authority to spend money on charity for two basic reasons: one, they knew that the lazy and indigent would be encouraged not to work and thus stand in line for Congress’s handouts (or cross our borders illegally for it). And, of course, Congressmen, wanting to buy votes, are more than willing to shell out other people’s hard-earned money to purchase said votes. That’s corruption, not the virtuous, republican government our Founders envisioned.
A second reason the Founders prohibited federal charity was a firm belief that people should care for themselves. Obviously, the “needy poor” exist; they always have and always will and should be helped. The question is not, should the needy poor be helped, but HOW is the best means to accomplish that—through government, churches, individuals, private charities, etc.? The problem is, of course, that people taking care of themselves don't buy votes for politicians. God designed the family as the great educational institution and the provider and financial supporter of children (and extended family members), but here is where the war is: the family doesn’t fit the Left’s decadent, licentious, and totalitarian philosophy. People who take care of themselves through the God-ordained nuclear family structure don’t need much government. And THAT is why the totalitarian Left, the Democratic Party, considers the family, and its source—God—the greatest enemy of its goal and agenda—totalitarian government.
So, there’s more to the USAID battle than just a few million or billion dollars—we’re talking about an entire cultural and moral war here, folks, one that we haven’t been winning.
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