Merged USAID: is it really a bunch of crazy leftists? / Trump Was Absolutely Right to Shut Down USAID

[thaiboxerken]

The would drink bleach if they thought liberals would be upset by it.

 

[Ziggurat]

This part is kind of funny, though: amongst USAID's purchases are...surplus crops from American farmers. They send the food as aid to other countries. But now, of course, they won't;

For the next 90 days.

Oh noes! Think of all those crops being harvested in February that aren't going to be bought until May!

 

[Norman Alexander]

The would drink bleach if they thought liberals would be upset by it.

Oh, I would love to be mightily upset by it!

 

[TragicMonkey]

For the next 90 days.

Oh noes! Think of all those crops being harvested in February that aren't going to be bought until May!

I'm pretty sure farms in this century have all their crops sold before they even plant them. And that you can't just switch things on and off like a switch. But perhaps you're as expert in commercial agriculture as you are in international relations?

 

[Ziggurat]

I'm pretty sure farms in this century have all their crops sold before they even plant them.

So they've already been sold?

And that you can't just switch things on and off like a switch.

Why not? Crops are commodity products. There's a market for them. The market doesn't stop just because one buyer pauses.

 

[thaiboxerken]

I'm pretty sure farms in this century have all their crops sold before they even plant them. And that you can't just switch things on and off like a switch. But perhaps you're as expert in commercial agriculture as you are in international relations?

He isn't. He's hoping ignorance is on his side. He'll ask questions upon questions until he exhausts your knowledge of the subject and then claim that the answer is there.

 

[JayUtah]

I wouldn't say necessary, but I'll stipulate some of their spending is desirable.

Fair enough. By "necessary" I mean only that the consequences of cutting off funding probably outweigh the consequences of continuing it during an evaluation.

Nobody offered the clean, tidy trimming that he wants.

Well, again, Congressional Democrats have suggested investigating other ways to trim. But Republicans seem adamant that Elon Musk's unsupervised hack-and-slash is the way they want to go. The difference is salient because Congress—for all its dysfunction—manages to behave itself best during budget negotiations. Cutting Congress out of the process entirely and making serious budget decisions a matter of one man's opinion seems inappropriate.

Didn't say that either. I was adamant that a lot of their spending is opaque. Never said all of it was.

Fair enough, but you addressed the part I raised as irrelevant snark and then ignored the part I intended to be a substantive argument.

 

[Axxman300]

Everyone knows that this would make sense. Also, everyone knows that DOGE is not about waste or fraud. DOGE is a money and power grab from the people to Musk and Trump. EVERYONE knows this, even MAGA.

The US Government already has the General Accounting Office (GAO) that tracks down government spending and waste. So DODGE is already a hypocrisy.

 

[Ziggurat]

Well, again, Congressional Democrats have suggested investigating other ways to trim.

They have now. Where were they the last four years? Where were they the past too decades? And proposals for investigating how to cut basically amount to bureaucratic delays. We can't make any cuts until we've studied it deeply, then we can debate the study, and haggle about which cuts to make, and by the time we're done no real progress has been made. I've seen that game played before.

But Republicans seem adamant that Elon Musk's unsupervised hack-and-slash is the way they want to go.

I'll take it over passivity, which was the alternative offer.

The difference is salient because Congress—for all its dysfunction—manages to behave itself best during budget negotiations.

Bwahahahahahaha!

Cutting Congress out of the process entirely and making serious budget decisions a matter of one man's opinion seems inappropriate.

Congress can complain when they start proposing some real cuts of their own. Until then, I don't care what any of them have to say about this.

 

[Ziggurat]

The US Government already has the General Accounting Office (GAO) that tracks down government spending and waste.

And then nothing happens.

So DODGE is already a hypocrisy.

Perhaps you meant a redundancy. But it's not, because by design the GAO is only intended to track down certain kinds of waste. The GAO essentially looks for inefficiencies and waste in executing policy, but it isn't intended to ask whether or not the policy itself is a waste. And so all it can do is tidy up a bit around the fringes. It never accomplishes fundamental change.

 

[johnny karate]

Nope, not my framing at all. You are very much missing the point.

I wouldn't say necessary, but I'll stipulate some of their spending is desirable. Zooterkin used the baby/bathwater analogy to object to cuts in USAID despite agreeing that some spending was undesirable. The point of my twist on his analogy is that nobody was cutting that undesirable funding in a way that would satisfy him. So I'd rather have it cut imperfectly than not cut at all. Because that's the choice I was actually offered. Nobody offered the clean, tidy trimming that he wants.

I enjoy how you continually frame this issue as if USAID was even on your radar before Musk and Trump politicized it with a bunch of wild conspiracy theories. No one gave a ◊◊◊◊ about what this agency was doing before and the only reason Trump supporters give a ◊◊◊◊ now is because they were instructed to.

Didn't say that either. I was adamant that a lot of their spending is opaque. Never said all of it was.

Your concern about the opaqueness of the USAID spending is laughable in consideration of the fact that you can't shrug your shoulders hard enough at the complete lack of transparency about what Musk and his crew are doing.

There is no amount of detail about how the USAID spends its money that will ever satisfy you and there is no lack of transparency about what is happening to it now that will ever bother you.

 

[thaiboxerken]

 

[Ziggurat]

I enjoy how you continually frame this issue as if USAID was even on your radar before Musk and Trump politicized it with a bunch of wild conspiracy theories. No one gave a ◊◊◊◊ about what this agency was doing before and the only reason Trump supporters give a ◊◊◊◊ now is because they were instructed to.

Dude. Your own complaints about what Trump is doing could be read from a script. Why do you care? Because you've been told to.

You pretend you're better than me, but you aren't.

 

[Resume]

View attachment 58875

Is this the fraud Donnie Diapers referred to?

 

[thaiboxerken]

It's evidence that DOGE is just a grift.

 

[johnny karate]

They have now. Where were they the last four years? Where were they the past too decades?

Where were you? Show me evidence that your cared about how the USAID spends its money before your first post in this thread.

This woke feminist USAID program was implemented during Trump's first administration by his daughter:

The Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative is the first-ever, whole-of-government approach to global women’s economic empowerment. The W-GDP Initiative aims to enhance opportunities for women to participate meaningfully in the economy and advance peace and prosperity. W-GDP seeks to reach 50 million women across the developing world by 2025 by focusing on three pillars—Women Prospering in the Workforce, Women Succeeding as Entrepreneurs, and Women Enabled in the Economy.

Show me where you gave one single ◊◊◊◊ about it.

 

[thaiboxerken]

To be fair, he didn't know he cared until he got the memo from the Nazi leadership.

 

[johnny karate]

Dude. Your own complaints about what Trump is doing could be read from a script. Why do you care? Because you've been told to.

I care because of the following:

We have a foreign-born person rummaging through sensitive government data who has business interests with a foreign power hostile to U.S. interests, hasn’t received the proper security clearances, and has a personal interest in undermining the agency he is currently dismantling, all based on lies and conspiracy theories.

You pretend you're better than me, but you aren't.

Nothing projects strength and confidence like someone randomly blurting out "You think you're better than me?".

 

[Ziggurat]

We have a foreign-born person rummaging through sensitive government data who has business interests with a foreign power hostile to U.S. interests, hasn’t received the proper security clearances, and has a personal interest in undermining the agency he is currently dismantling, all based on lies and conspiracy theories.

Yup. That's the script. That's what you've been told to care about. And you dutifully comply.

 

[johnny karate]

Yup. That's the script. That's what you've been told to care about. And you dutifully comply.

Those are legitimate things to be concerned about. The act of being concerned about them isn’t born of instruction but rather awareness.

They also have the advantage of being true, unlike the lies and conspiracy theories fueling the Trump supporter outrage over a minuscule government agency they weren’t even aware existed a week ago.