USAID Spending: Foreign Aid Must Serve American Interests

When President John F. Kennedy created the United States Agency for International Development in 1961, he did so with a spirit of optimism about America’s ability to help the needy but also with the pragmatic realization that winning a Cold War that was being fought across the globe meant fighting communist ideology with foreign development aid as well as with bullets.

Unfortunately, today, USAID has become a web of largely unaccountable bureaucrats with many questionable programs and staff that consider it more a charitable nongovernmental organization than an agency that’s meant to work on behalf of taxpayers. With a budget exceeding $40 billion, USAID does more to pad the wallets of contractor companies in the D.C. “swamp” than to effectively deliver assistance in support of U.S. foreign policy objectives.

About the Author

Michael Baumgartner

Congressman Michael Baumgartner represents the people of Washington’s fifth district and sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

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When President John F. Kennedy created the United States Agency for International Development in 1961, he did so with a spirit of optimism about America’s ability to help the needy but also with the pragmatic realization that winning a Cold War that was being fought across the globe meant fighting communist ideology with foreign development aid as well as with bullets.

Unfortunately, today, USAID has become a web of largely unaccountable bureaucrats with many questionable programs and staff that consider it more a charitable nongovernmental organization than an agency that’s meant to work on behalf of taxpayers. With a budget exceeding $40 billion, USAID does more to pad the wallets of contractor companies in the D.C. “swamp” than to effectively deliver assistance in support of U.S. foreign policy objectives.