The shuttering of the USAID and temporary pause on all foreign assistance has a lot of folks up in arms. Major media outlets in the United States are fulfilling their tired, well-worn axiom:
When Democrats are running the federal government, media reports will be issued that highlight people benefitting from federal policies and programs.
When Republicans are running the federal government, media reports will be issued that highlight the victims of federal policies and programs.
For instance, in a piece by the Associated Press whose headline screeched, "The USAID shutdown is upending livelihoods for nonprofit workers, farmers and other Americans," the totally objective, impartial journalists who penned the story actually said these words:
There's the executive in a U.S. supply-chain company whose voice breaks while facing the next round of calls telling employees they no longer have jobs.
And a farmer in Missouri who grew up knowing that a world with more hungry people is a world that's more dangerous.
And a Maryland-based philanthropy, founded by Jews who fled pogroms in Eastern Europe, is shutting down much of its more than 120-year-old mission…
USAID Stop-Work, a group tracking the impact, says USAID contractors have reported that they laid off nearly 13,000 American workers. The group estimates that the actual total is more than four times that.
Here are stories of some Americans whose livelihoods have been upended:
You can guess what followed.
It's not that I believe such stories shouldn't be written, though it's curious the disproportionate concern these outlets have for government workers who lose their jobs and livelihood while constantly downplaying the economic devastation experienced by private sector workers during the Biden years. It's that I believe there should be an adjacent elucidation of the myriad programs that have proven to be exploitative abuses of taxpayers and a jarring display of poor stewardship of the nation's riches. This is particularly the case when the overarching theme of the critiques is moral and religious.
Take the opening of this conversation about the USAID issue from the Christian podcast, "The Holy Post," specifically the premise established by host Skye Jethani:
Skye Jethani: 'I cannot think of any time in my lifetime where there was an organized Christian objection to foreign aid. How do you have something that's been going on for 80 years, that the church has primarily supported, wholeheartedly supported for 80 years, and in the course of a month does a 180? That's not for a well thought-through theological reason.'
This is the kind of intentionally tilted premise Americans have come to expect from secular media beholden to progressive ideology. It's not becoming of those wearing the name of Christ.
For one thing, a peripheral scan of Holy Post podcasts turns up a plentiful supply of handwringing and cautionary consternation about the creeping hand of Christian nationalism - that is, the amalgamation of church and state, where believers wield the levers of government as a means to advance their agenda through political power.
It is somewhat odd to see those same voices express dismay that Christians do not want to wield the levers of government as a means to advance their agenda.
But beyond that, Jethani certainly knows that the "objection" being voiced by this "organized" contingent of Christians is not to feeding widows and orphans. The objection is to the reality of widows and orphans in the United States not being cared for, while an organization like USAID spends one and half billion dollars of taxpayer money to encourage Afghan farmers to move away from opium production, and instead ends up financing a 119% increase in opium cultivation in the country.
Do Jethani and his guest Kaitlyn Schiess think that is an unchristian objection?
Why gloss over that reality and paint the situation in such a hyperbolic, generalized way?
Why does Jethani speak in such dishonest, intentional oversimplifications simply to criticize his fellow Christians?
It's unbecoming at best, sinfully slanderous at worst.
Don't misunderstand, making nuanced arguments about the good things American foreign aid goes to support is legitimate and worthwhile. Celebrating the elimination of wasteful expenditures that are doing more harm than good is also legitimate and worthwhile, is it not?
Despite what Jethani presupposes, it has not just been the last month that many Americans, including many Christians, have raised eyebrows at the extraordinary waste that happens in D.C.
In fact, it wasn't that long ago that the same progressives who so often get a pass from the Holy Post (and their guests) were some of the loudest voices bemoaning the tax dollars funneled into foreign wars, regional conflicts and entanglements, all spent in the name of "aid." It's a bit dizzying to see the "180" they have done in that regard.
Even a cursory, layman's understanding of American foreign aid programs provides ample evidence of boondoggles that prop up bad actors, breed anti-American resentment, and generate dangerously debilitating economic dependence.
With all due respect to Mr. Jethani and his self-proclaimed "holy" observations, blanket support for such outcomes doesn't seem to spring from a "well thought-through theological reason."
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Not the Bee or any of its affiliates.
