The new administration in Washington has somewhat startled its critics by issuing a blizzard of executive orders during its opening weeks in office. So far the reaction from the American left might be summed up by the sentiment: ‘That’s not fair – it’s only us that are allowed to do things when we are in power.’
The American left are in a particular funk about the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) – as though railing against the proposed reduction of federal spending and reduction of the American deficit is a natural vote-winner. But good news does just keep on coming. On Monday, Elon Musk said that President Donald Trump had agreed to shutter USAID – the US government money spigot that sprays money around the world, much of it to people who hate America.
Like our own Department for International Development, the British Council and others, it is one of those entities which might just justify itself if it actually promoted the values of the donor country. But all these organisations were long ago taken over by insane people who hate the taxpayers that give them their money and think the best way for a nation to act in the 21st century is as a sort of large NGO.
This week, various White House spokesmen had fun pointing out some recent projects which might not have been the best use of US taxpayer dollars: $1.5 million to ‘advance diversity, equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities’; $47,000 to fund a ‘transgender opera’ in Colombia; $2 million for sex changes in Guatemala. And hundreds of millions of dollars to provide better irrigation systems for Afghan poppy-growing projects as well as hundreds of thousands of meals for al Qaeda-related terrorists in Syria.
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