July 3, 2025 • 39 mins
USAID has saved tens of millions of lives across the globe since its inception. But those days are over. Learn all about this soon-to-be-gone program.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you
Should Know. Another timely topical edition of Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Like I just said, that's right, as it turns out,
weirdly super timely because as of this recording date yesterday,
this is July first, Yesterday, June thirtieth, will have been
the kind of the final day for most us AID employees.
(00:42):
I saw a headline yesterday in the New York Times
where Bono cries. Yeah, Bono kind probably did cry, But
people like President George W. Bush and President Obama and
Bono all got together and said, hey, you know, USA
did so much good work. We're very proud of the
work we did. George W. Bush in particular, was proud
(01:03):
of the program that started under his watch, the President's
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief that he initiated that saved
twenty five million people's lives. President Obama said, I wish
I could do a good Obama, he said, ending USAID
would go down as a colossal mistake. Ending your presence
(01:23):
in your programs out in the world, and this was
directly to employees. They did like video messages. That's why
it's in that person.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah. I think they actually had a video call too
for them.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, ending your presence in your programs out in the
world hurts the most vulnerable, and it hurts the United States.
To many people around the world, USAID is the United States.
And then I got to read Bono's quote, because you know,
why not.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Before you do, I just want to say, like you
nailed the Obama with the in the middle.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Of it, Bono said, it's not left wing rhetoric to
feel hungry, heal the sick. If this isn't murder, I
don't know what is.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
That was a prety to get bona.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, it was more of a Larry Mullen junior. But
we say all that because I'm not really sure whether
or not we should speak in the past tense on
this with a lot of the stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Well, today's the day. So, like you said, yesterday, it
was the last day that USAD existed as an independent
agency in the US federal government. Today's the day that
it got absorbed into the State Department. And I believe
also today the State Department Secretary of State. Marco Rubio,
the former senator from Florida, announced that there is going
(02:32):
to be some sort of new foreign aid agency called
America First, which is a mind bender. Is it really yes?
So that it's not fully going away, it's just going
to be restructured. They're going to be doing it differently.
And it's really hard to say. It's really hard to
(02:52):
get across how big of a deal it is that
something like USAID specifically is being done away with wholesale.
The mothball done really abruptly, really quickly. It's not being
kind of slowly rolled back or anything like that. It
just got its head cut off right right within six
months after being announced. It was just done. And it's,
(03:15):
of course, because we're talking about the United States, it's
a political hot button issue. Everything is a political hot
button issue, but this one should not be divided between
the left and the right. Like this is how America
influenced the entire world for decades. Some of it was
really bad, some of it was really good. But I
(03:38):
feel like me personally, it needed a lot of restructuring.
But I think it was a good infrastructure, a good
apparatus that just needed to be retooled. I think it
was a little ham fisted, to say the least, to
just stop it immediately. That's my take on it.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, I agree. And for a second there a few
minutes ago, I thought you were going to say Marco
Ruby said it was now called America.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, is that a Team America reference?
Speaker 1 (04:06):
I think yeah? That was from that movie, right.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I think so? I hope, yeah, I think it was too.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I saw that that was a who was it? There
was a Democratic House member senator the other day that
was as far as what you were talking about, and
we're going to get into the numbers here and the
history of everything, but he was talking about kind of
what you were saying was like just kind of shuddering
this guys. If the budget of the United States is
the height of the ceiling of this room, and it
(04:33):
was a big room. He said, the budget for USAID
is these two credit cards stacked on each other.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
And he said, you know, to there has been waste
in there, and there has been some fraud, and we're
going to cover that stuff because we like to be
even handed. Sure, he said, and that's it at its worst,
but at its best, you're shuddering something that costs so
little money for us that has saved tens of dozens
of millions of lives of people, and not only just
(04:59):
like life saving, but as you'll see, just influence for
people around the world to like Bono said, like to
some people around the world, US eight is America, and
that's like they're the people that came in and helped
us when we were at our most dire. That's the
United States.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, yeah, So hopefully we'll kind of get it across.
If you're already mad, you know, politically speaking, just settle
down and listen, because we're not. We're not approaching this
from like a no Obama's right kind of thing. It's like, like,
just listen to this and make up your own mind.
We're not going to try to steer you. We were
just sharing our own opinions on it. We're allowed to
(05:34):
have those because we're thinking feeling human beings.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
That's right, all right. So the US historically is the
single humanitarian the largest single humanitarian aid donor in the world.
We supplied about forty percent of humanitarian aid in twenty
twenty four. As either the wealthiest or one of the
wealthiest countries in the world, foreign assistance falls into these
(05:57):
broad categories when it and again this is all foreign assistance.
US eight is within that, as we'll see, but humanitarian
assistance is about twenty five percent of it. And this
is like you know, medicine, food, and shelter to save
people after epidemics and disasters and famine. Development and assistance
is sixty percent. Those are programs installed to develop democratic
(06:22):
nations economically, politically, socially. And then the last smaller piece,
smallest piece is security funding fifteen percent. It's not a
part of the US military. Their programs to help strengthen
foreign militaries and foreign police to you know, get their
act together and instill some sort of rule of law
where there might not be any.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, and we don't want to be polyannis about this.
Like USA, it identified the police and training and outfitting
and helping financially the police in different countries is like
the best way to tap into that local that nations
like the pol keeping your pulse on that nation's local stuff,
(07:03):
right to because the police are the ones who like
suppress riots and suppress demonstrations. They're the ones who arrest people.
Like bringing in the military is way too big of
a deal. The police can do it, so USA definitely
focused on training police. That was a big one too,
and that just kind of peels back the layer because
(07:23):
right now, Chuck, let me just say this and I'll stop.
There's a lot of really like sunny, glowing, like really
fairly not fully realistic talk about USAID and what it does.
It does a lot of this stuff, but it leaves
out a lot of the darker side. And I think
you have to take it as the whole thing to
(07:44):
fully understand its value in the world.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, absolutely, and that's our aim here. But if you're
talking about since World War Two, we've distributed about four
trillion dollars and today dollars to foreign assistance, which is
a lot of money. But like I mentioned earlier, with
a little credit card metaphor that I ganked from that senator,
as a percentage of our federal budget, foreign aid accounts
(08:09):
for one percent of our total government spending.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
And that's all foreign aid. The USAID's portion is zero
point five percent. So just us AID has less than
a percent of the federal budget.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Just two credit cards laying on the floor, right, Maybe
credit card wasn't the best thing to use, like insurance
card or something, or that probably wouldn't have been good either.
Library card, how about that?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, don't talk about insurance.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, library cards are not controversial, right.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, A little bit controversial, sure, all right, especially school libraries.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Since nineteen sixty one, most of this foreign aid has
come through the US Aid Office because that's when it
was established, the US Agency for International Development, created by
John F. Kennedy, and the idea was, as we'll see,
was to create what he called or what everybody calls
soft power around the world because it was a time
(09:07):
during you know, as you'll see, during the Cold War
when the influences of the Soviet Union in China were worrisome,
and Kennedy saw the writing on the wall and was like, hey,
I think, like we need to get in there before
other countries get in there with their communism and spread
our message of democracy by helping assist them.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yeah, which was like totally in step with the containment
policy of keeping communism and checking keeping it from spreading,
rather than using the military every time. You could also basically,
you know, grease some palms around the world, and these
countries that were hanging in the balance in the Third World,
you could sway them over the democracy side. And they
could become an ally and trading partner of the US.
(09:53):
Why not.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, And you can trace the roots of this back
to the Marshall Plan when in nineteen forty seven, post
World War Two, Secretary State George Marshall said, Hey, we
got to rebuild Europe and put a lot of money
into that. I think it was about one hundred and
seventy five billion and today dollars. And he claimed at
the time that it was a quote not directed against
any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos,
(10:14):
which is partly true. But what was also true was
the Marshall Plan was to stop the Soviets and stop
Stalin from going in further to Europe, and like we said,
sort of plant the American flag over there in a way.
And this was one of the tools usaid was one
of the tools, one of the bigger tools during the
Cold War to establish our influences like a country that's
(10:36):
trying to do good.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, this was helped along. I think the Marshall Plan
was nineteen forty seven, did you say that. Yeah, Like
later on in the fifties, it was helped along by
a couple of MIT economists Walt Rostaw and Max Milliken,
and they basically said, this Marshall plan that we used
to rebuild Europe and keep countries from falling into the
(10:58):
hands of the Soviets and Communists, this is a good idea,
even outside of the context of rebuilding after a World war.
This should just be part of American policy.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, and Kennedy liked this idea eventually so much. Senator
Kennedy at the time would hire Walt Rostau as a
policy advisor on his staff, and when he was elected president,
he appointed him as his deputy national security advisor. And
Kennedy before, you know, when he was a young congressman,
he was not into foreign assistants. He was like, America first,
we got to help ourselves first. But then he went
(11:30):
on a seven week congressional trip in nineteen fifty one
to Pakistan, Israel, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Korea, Japan, and what
is now Vietnam, French Indo, China at the time, and
he was like, you know what, it's I'm all for
the military, but it can't just be a military exercise.
We got to have an economic stake in this, and
(11:53):
we got to do that through foreign aid.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, there was also a book that helped change his
mind a few years later, The Ugly American. It was
published in nineteen fifty eight. It was a bestseller, and
essentially it was a fictionalized version of the experiences of
the authors as diplomats in pre war Vietnam, and it
almost satirizes American diplomacy at the time, which was you
(12:20):
had diplomats who were at parties with other diplomats in
gated communities, way far away from the people of the
country they were trying to serve. And these guys argued, no,
you need to immerse yourself in it. You need to
learn the language, like you have to find out what
these people really need or else all you're doing is
patronizing them and wasting money. And it had a huge
(12:41):
impact on America in general. But also Kennedy, who is like,
this is my north star here in guiding how foreign
policy in America should go, and even took out a
page in The New York Times, a full page ad
saying this is a great book. How was that?
Speaker 1 (13:03):
It was pretty good? This, you know. Shortly thereafter, in
nineteen fifty nine, when Cuba falls to Castro, all of
a sudden, it's like, hey, this is literally happening right
out our outside our back door. So the time is now.
He didn't create the idea for foreign aid. We had
programs at the time, Food for Peace, the Development Loan Fund,
(13:25):
and others. But Kennedy was the one in March of
nineteen sixty one to wrap that all up, tie a
bow on it, and say here, Congress, this is USAID
and this is this is a new program along with
the Peace Corps that we're creating that like the great
ambitions that America should pursue. And Congress got on board.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah. And one of the big things that he pushed
for with the creation of USAID in particular was five
year budgets.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Ah good luck.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yeah, so foreign aid up to that point and then
after that point, because he didn't get the five of
your budgets he was looking for. The USA budget was
tied to annual federal budgets and so it was you know,
it suffered the vaggarees of congressional fights over budgets that
happened every year. But the point was the reason Kennedy
(14:15):
wanted a five year budget was because if his USA
people were going to these countries that were like should
we go communists or democratic? They needed to come to
them and say, hey, your sympathetic, sympathetic to democracy, you're
running for president. Here's what we can do for you
(14:37):
that you can actually build a platform around, because we're
going to guarantee that you're going to get this funding
X number of dollars for five years because we want
this country to be a democracy, and we want to
make you the leader of the democracy any way we can.
And Congress was still like, no, we're not going to
do that.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeah, I feel like that's a good time for a break,
and we'll come back and talk about some successes of
USAID over the years right after this. All right, so
(15:26):
we're back in this promise, we're going to talk about
some of the success stories of USAID over the years.
More than half of our funding for USAID in the
nineteen sixties went towards something we talked about quite a
bit over the years here and there called the Green Revolution,
which was a campaign led by doctor Norman Borlog. He
(15:47):
wrote too many in history to fight hunger and asia
by saying, hey, let's modernize your agricultural practices. Let's bring
them into the new age with your irrigation techniques, fertilization technius,
how to rotate crops, getting you better crop yields even
when it's a drought going on. And he was very,
(16:07):
very successful at this and changed the world. And this
ran through USAID.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah, so today's estimates put the number of lives that
Norman Borlog and the Green Revolution and USAID for overseeing
this program saved was probably about a quarter of a
billion people. So right out of the gate, one of
the first things USA does is save a quarter of
a billion lives from starvation. That's good enough. But at
the same time, Chairman Mao is pushing the Great Leap
(16:36):
forward in China where he's completely restructuring the agricultural industry,
taking a ton of peasant farmers, putting them in iron
and steel factories, and drastically limiting the food supply so
that forty five million Chinese citizens die in three years.
(16:58):
So people were able to look around and like, wow,
this communist idea really didn't work. This USAID idea worked
really well. Tell me a little more about USAID, and Chuck,
I feel like I should also say it's just come
to be. You used to work for Peace Corps, not
as a Peace Corps volunteer, but as like one of
the people in the Home office, and I told her
(17:19):
we were recording on USAID, and she pointed out very quickly,
it's USAID. Well, we've been saying USAID this whole time.
Apologies to everybody, I say, we just keep saying USAID.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I think most people say USAID, and I identify it
as USAID, So I think that's fine.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Okay, kid, it's just you me who calls it USAID.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
No, no, no, I'm just saying I think will be
forgiven because most people read that as USAID and they
know what we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Gotcha, Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
One of the ones I want to mention, well, I
mentioned earlier the initiative launch launched by President Bush in
two thousand and three, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS relief,
and what a success that has been. But the one
that really gets me is smallpox. That this was a
deadly disease in the nineteen sixties that was killing kids
(18:07):
all over the world, and we eradicated that thanks to USAID.
How's that very nice partnering with the CDC to establish
an anti smallpox campaign in each country? Or it was
a big, big problem, and they have saved over the
past eleven years by completely eradicating smallpox basically millions of
(18:28):
lies every single year.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yes, in the only two places in the world where
you can find smallpox on the planet today is in
Siberia and Atlanta. Yeah, that's right, talking about saving lives,
not just from like you said, pepfar and from smallpox,
but the us AIDS taking on tuberculosis has saved an
(18:50):
estimated fifty eight million lives since two thousand, and I
believe that estimate was either from twenty seventeen or twenty twenty,
so it's probably higher than that by now. And then
malaria too. I think they estimate that since two thousand,
the President's Malaria Initiative under USAID has saved nearly twelve
(19:11):
million lives, and that in countries where the President's Malaria
Initiative exists, there's been a forty eight percent decline in
malaria deaths on average. So like they're literally saving actual
lives by going in and being like, oh, this is
a real problem. Let's fund the people who are working
to combat this in the place where it's a problem,
(19:33):
and it's having these demonstrable effects like positive effects like
saving people's lives.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah, and they have their little American flag patch on
the whole time. People know exactly where it's coming from.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
That's right. They don't put that Canada flag on their
backpack and lie to everyone.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
And that was even a thing when I traveled Europe
in the mid nineties. Yeah, for sure, was a Canadian
flag because they're like, we're not American. Please don't be
fooled by my right.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Exactly. I have no love for Bill Clinton. I don't
even even know who that is. Why would I even
bring up Bill Clinton.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
We said we were going to cover this even handedly,
and we you know, there have been plenty of criticisms
and controversies over the years with USAID. I guess which
one should I talk about? How about this one? It's
not a perfect program. There have been all kinds of
what you call a devil's bargain over the years trying
to fight communism, one of which was, you know, we've
(20:31):
talked in the past about CIA engineered coups across the
world to topple dictatorial regimes. Foreign assistants provided by USAID
was used a lot of times as a negotiating chip
to basically win allies here and there. So that's you know,
maybe not the purest use of what it was set
out to be. No.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
A good example of that is Afghanistan. Us aid's involvement
in Afghanistan after the US invaded is just widely considered
a total disaster. Afghanistan received more than one hundred billion
dollars in foreign aid from the United States and as
something like forty percent of it went directly to government officials, warlords,
(21:16):
drug lords, insurgents who bought weapons with it and then
fought the United States with it. Yeah, not a good look.
And I found a statistic too that over fifteen years,
usa'd spent almost one and a half billion dollars just
on helping Afghan farmers transitioned from opium production to anything
(21:38):
but opium essentially, and the opium farmers in Afghanistan said,
thanks a lot for the money. Where's going to use
this instead to expand our opium production as it stands,
And between twenty thirteen and twenty fifteen, in Kandahar Province alone,
opium cultivation more than doubled like one hundred and nineteen
percent in two years because of U USAID money which
(22:01):
was now going not just to insurgents, but to create
the heroin supply in the United States.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Yeah, black eye on that one for sure. More recently,
there was a company called Chemonics that was awarded the
single largest contract ever from USA. It was a nine
and a half billion dollar contract and the goal there
was to streamline delivery worldwide of medical supplies, you know,
mosquito nets, contraceptives, vaccine, stuff like that. And it was
(22:30):
very poorly managed by USAID and there was Chemonics was
involved with false reporting between them and their partners, and
it was just a pretty big debacle, and you know,
USAID continued to pour money into it even as it
was floundering, which again another stain on their reputation, which
(22:51):
you know, we say all this stuff to fairly report,
but also to point out that, like it makes it
a really easy target when you can say, you know,
we spent nine and a half billion dollars on this
thing that was mismanaged, and you know, fraud like that
is definitely something to root out. You know, no one's
saying like that stuff's okay.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
And then, Chuck, there's one more terrible story of USAID
dropping the ball that we just have to share. Can
we take it away. Then, Well, there's a guy named
Alan Gross, who I guess was an IT dude, who
was hired as a subcontractor for USAID to go to
Cuba in two thousand and nine and set up alternate
(23:30):
access to the Internet for the small Jewish community in Cuba.
There a few things USAID was illegal in Cuba at
the time, probably still is. The government controlled access to
the Internet in Cuba, probably still does. And the Jewish
community in Cuba did not ask for alternate Internet access.
It was just thrust upon them. So Alan Gross was
(23:55):
discovered and arrested as a spy because USAID sent him
in there. The guy barely even spoke Spanish from what
I read, and the United States had to trade three
Cuban actual spies that they'd had since the nineties to
get Alan Gross back from Cuba.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Oh yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Do you remember that? One?
Speaker 1 (24:13):
I do.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
It's just so nuts and just so misguided that I
could not include it.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah, agreed.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, let's talk about it being an easy target, because
the thing is, they have so many different things going
on in so many parts of the world that inevitably
some of them are going to turn out to be
crooked or rotten or poorly managed or a waste of money.
That's just that's a given. Nobody's I don't think debating that.
What I think is important as how the agency or
(24:45):
an agency or anybody in that position responds to that
kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
So, there's been like a few examples of controversies that
were non controversies because USA had handled it really well.
A big one was a USA charity of charity that
the USAID funded in Kenya, The Children of God Relief Institute,
ran an orphanage for children in Kenya who had been
affected by AIDS, and in twenty twenty one, USAID was
(25:14):
told by a whistleblower that this charity was covering up
rampant sex abuse of children and its orphanage.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah. The USAID Inspector General said that the Children of
God Relief Institute quote knew or should have known of
multiple incidents of child sex abuse. And USAID found out
about this, and they cut off funding in twenty twenty
three and told the Kenyan police like, here's everything we
have on this.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah. That's another kind of indirect service that USAID provides
is they do high quality international inspections of something like
a single charity in Kenya, and then they shared the
information the results of their inspections, their investigations, and sometimes
it can bring criminal charges against people who who were
(26:00):
doing wrong. But really USA idea is making sure that
their money's not being spent or going to bad actors.
But it has this other rippling effect that I think
in some ways actually provides justice that otherwise might not
have been provided.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah, totally. You know, another sort of annoying way that
modern politics works in this country is the you know,
sort of homing in on a single either SoundBite or
just something that they know will be super gravvy. And
both sides do this. I'm not like picking on any
particular side here of you know, of the way we
(26:38):
absorb our content these days, and like a big example
of this is, you know, we spent fifty million dollars
on condoms in Gaza, and that's just not true. That's
not what happened, but no one cares to know the truth.
It seems like as long as they can run that
headline and tweet about it, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yeah, it's just bad in fall around the fifty million
dollars is so this group was actually getting an injection
of one hundred million dollars. They were getting it in
fifty and then another fifty later, so it wasn't even
just fifty million dollars. There was one hundred million dollars.
It was going to a group called the International Medical
Corps working in Gaza. They provide emergency medical services and
(27:20):
they do have a there is some family planning that
they provide. Services they provide, but that includes way more
than just contraception, and that's not anywhere near a focus
of they what they do in Gaza anywhere else with
their emergency medical services. And then to top it all off,
(27:40):
the director of the International Medical Corps said, the money
that we've already gotten out, a single dollar has been
spent on condoms anyway. So this whole thing is just
totally not just blown out of proportion, it's wrong. And yet,
like you said, that's the SoundBite that gets reported all
throughout the news on any part of the spectrum. And
it's just like, it's just such a bad time to
(28:04):
take in information right now.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, it's pretty depressing. I totally agree.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Should we take another break?
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah, all right, but much more.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Yeah, Yeah, we talked about some highs and lows. We're
going to talk a little bit more about that and
whether or not the USA I D is a good
investment for the United States.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Right after this, so you said we were going to
(28:46):
talk a little bit about a few more highs and lows.
Just today, I would guess this was strategically released the
British Medical journal. Very respective, British Medical Journal of the
Lancet released a report that said that since I think
two thousand maybe two thousand and two, I can't remember,
(29:07):
an estimated ninety one million deaths preventable deaths have been
prevented because of US AID funding. Pretty impressive.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Ninety one million people, yes, all right.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
But and this in like a twenty twenty five years
something like that, it's not since they started. But they
also estimate that within the next five years, by twenty thirty,
about fourteen million preventable deaths won't have been prevented because
of the cuts to US AID funding, right, which is
(29:38):
not good.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Now, it's not. And you know that that's like that
kind of brings us to whether or not it's a
good investment for the US. You know, we've kind of
mentioned some of the highs and lows, and at its
best you are saving, you know, hundreds of millions of
lives since its inception at US worse cost billions of
dollars for you know, know, dictators to line their pockets
(30:02):
sometimes or criminals to get funded, and arms get funded
and drugs get funded. So it's it's a reasonable thing
to put it under a microscope for sure. A little
bit more about the budget, you know, twenty twenty four,
the budget was twenty one point seven billion dollars, which
is point three of the total federal spending, which is
(30:22):
six point eight trillion dollars point three percent compared to
four percent for the Department of Education also going away,
and the Department of Defense at thirteen percent compared to
point three percent. Since nineteen eighty, USAID spending has increased
one hundred and six percent, while overall government spending has
(30:44):
increased close to two hundred percent. So it's not like
it's even kept pace with our spending as a government
overall since nineteen eighty.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Right, Right, So that's the best you can do essentially,
when you try to talk about whether it's a good investment,
is point out how lit we actually spend on it? Right, Yeah,
you know, because the it's so it's basically impossible to
calculate the return on investment because the return on investment
is worldwide goodwill toward the United States, and the United
(31:15):
States can be like, hey, you know that favor you
owe me, I'm calling it in because we're putting a
military alliance together, or this giant American business wants to
start doing business in your country, whatever it is. And
that is actually something that made me curious about why
Trump was so hell bent on shutting down USAID, because
(31:39):
it's not like he's not into people owing him favors.
With USAID, it's an unwritten thing like you owe America
favors now, like you're our friend, but it's not like
we're just giving you money, and it's just strictly goodwill,
just strictly life saving. That's the state of goal. But
there's also an undercurrent there where like if we call
(31:59):
it favor you better, you better come to our help.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah that, yeah, that is fairly perplexing. I never really
thought about like that because I don't know, kind of
one of his things is leverage.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
And right, yeah, that's a better way to put it.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
That keeps that leverage in place. So yeah, it's very
interesting as far as what Americans think about this. This
is a poll from Pew Research in twenty nineteen, so
it's a little bit old. It might be skewed a
little bit differently now, but they thought it was kind
of split. You know, thirty thirty thirty thirty percent or
thirty three ish percent thought that we should increase foreign
(32:35):
aid spending, about thirty three percent said we should reduce it,
and about a third said we should keep it about
the same. Yeah, So take that for what it's worth.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Yeah. Also, it's speaking of polls, Apparently, polls consistently show
that Americans grossly overestimate how much the US spends on
foreign aid. Typically, Americans think we spend about twenty five
percent or a quarter of our national budget on foreign aid.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
That's staggering that.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
People think that. Again, remember we spend roughly one percent.
I think it was one point two percent back in
twenty twenty three. So, like, just the difference from perception
is not so. I wonder how many people out there
are like, wait, it's that and we're not doing that anymore.
I wonder if that's going to be an outcome of
it or not. I also feel like, you know, we
should wait and see what this America First Agency's policies
(33:27):
and things are, if they reactivate some of these existing
networks or infrastructure that USA had already had, or if
they're just starting over from scratch. So I'm curious about that.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, to insert my
opinion here, because we are real humans and we have them.
What frustrates me the most, I think is that this idea,
like you just said, like there are people out there
that think we spend twenty five percent of our money
on other countries, which is a joke, that they will
be like, you know, how much better my life is
going to be when we cut off funding to help
(34:00):
these people around the world and help us instead. When
that doesn't.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Happen, Yeah, that's a good point, and.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
When their lives don't change at all in any way.
I just wonder if anyone's going to look back and say, yeah,
what a I mean, it might be fifty years from
now they're like, what a horrible thing that we did
to not help the most vulnerable people of the world.
When people thought that all of a sudden their life
was going to look better in the United States because
(34:28):
we stopped saving the lives of others.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
I don't know. I feel like we as Americas have
really demonstrated the ability to do all sorts of mental
gymnastics to support our points, So who knows.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
One other thing that's a a big problem with just
rolling back USA, especially so abruptly, is US eight is
a thorn in autocrat sides around the world. Like if USA,
if you allow USA to work in your country, you
got to take what you like and what you don't
like you can't. It's not a buffet. So USAID supports
(35:03):
a lot of like pro democracy groups and organizations and
countries that are kind of short on democracy, and now
those groups are going to be left without funding, also
very importantly left without implicit American support for them and
them not being abused or their human rights being abused,
(35:23):
and they're basically just being left out to dry, and
autocrats are going to be able to do more of
what they do. So it is very much a blow
to global democracy as well to just lose USAID. And
there is one more thing that is causing concern among
people who are concerned about this, and that is that
this is going to leave a vacuum around the world
(35:45):
in foreign aid that China in particular is going to
be happy to step in and fill. So they will
be the ones growing influence around the world. And they're
already at it. Actually, the US spent three point eight
trillion in foreign aid over the last eighty years since
World War Two. China has spent one trillion already just
(36:07):
in the last twelve years. So not only will we
be losing our ability to make and keep friends, we'll
be giving our biggest rival a chance to gain even more.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And you know, if you're depending
on what side of the fence you're on with this,
you might think, hey, guys, you didn't talk about this, this,
and this and those were all bad programs. Are there
other people that might say, you didn't talk about this,
this is and those are all great programs distributed through
usaid and that you know, we just don't have hours
and hours to go over every single thing. We tried
(36:41):
to cover a little bit of both.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Yeah, I feel like it's worth saying then there are
like you, especially if you're critical of America's influence around
the world, and especially the underhanded version of it. USA
is very much involved in that. So if you're critical
of that, you were probably critical of USAID, and you're
probably not exactly shedding a tear for USAID being rolled back.
(37:07):
That's definitely one point of view out there. I think
if we're talking about trying to be fair here, that's
I think that's an important thing to point out.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Yeah, for sure, so USAID.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I think hopefully we've presented enough info that you can
make up your own mind. We certainly respect you trying
to do that. Don't just listen to us, and of
course that means it's a listener mayw.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Yeah, since Josh just said don't listen to us.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
I think that's a good rule of thumb, right.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Great advice from a podcaster. Hey guys, this is this
is another chuck correction. It was kind of on both
of us. I guess okay, Hey guys, longtime listener, really
enjoy the variety of topics. For the first time in
ten plus years, I feel compelled to write in and
ask for a correction. During the Sunset Boulevard episode Tangent,
you guys are talking about American graffiti and surmise that it
(37:59):
was based on the Sunset Boulevard like cruising zone that
is not correct, guys, I never do this. American Graffiti
is based on coming of age in Modesto, California.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
That's what we said.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
This is where George Lucas grew up. Guys. The movie
references a number of local streets roads in nearby cities.
It was not filmed here, but it was definitely based
on the car cruising culture of Modesto in the sixties.
And I didn't know that rich Olm from a Modesto native,
and I wish I had known that because I link
Modesto in my mind to one of my top three
(38:35):
modern bands of all time. Oh Granddaddy out of Modesto.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Oh Grandaddy? Yeah, they were great. Yes, I thought you
were going to talk about red tail or red Hawk beer.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Oh no, no, no, is that a Modesto beer.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Yeah, it's really good.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Help to try that, It's all we got. That was
rich That was rich Olm.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Well where were you when we needed you? Rich when
we were talking about it being set in LA that's
my question.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Not a Modesto because he's a Modesto native, so probably
not still a Modesto.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
No, he could still be a Modesto.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah, but I figured he would say current Modesto resident
and here's where I live.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Maybe maybe okay, Well either way, Rich, maybe you can
email back in and let us know which is the case.
And while we're waiting for an email from Rich, also
waiting for an email from you, you can send it
to us at stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you
Should Know. Another timely topical edition of Stuff you Should Know.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Like I just said, that's right, as it turns out,
weirdly super timely because as of this recording date yesterday,
this is July first, Yesterday, June thirtieth, will have been
the kind of the final day for most us AID employees.
(00:42):
I saw a headline yesterday in the New York Times
where Bono cries. Yeah, Bono kind probably did cry, But
people like President George W. Bush and President Obama and
Bono all got together and said, hey, you know, USA
did so much good work. We're very proud of the
work we did. George W. Bush in particular, was proud
(01:03):
of the program that started under his watch, the President's
Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief that he initiated that saved
twenty five million people's lives. President Obama said, I wish
I could do a good Obama, he said, ending USAID
would go down as a colossal mistake. Ending your presence
(01:23):
in your programs out in the world, and this was
directly to employees. They did like video messages. That's why
it's in that person.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
Yeah. I think they actually had a video call too
for them.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yeah, ending your presence in your programs out in the
world hurts the most vulnerable, and it hurts the United States.
To many people around the world, USAID is the United States.
And then I got to read Bono's quote, because you know,
why not.
Speaker 2 (01:45):
Before you do, I just want to say, like you
nailed the Obama with the in the middle.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Of it, Bono said, it's not left wing rhetoric to
feel hungry, heal the sick. If this isn't murder, I
don't know what is.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
That was a prety to get bona.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, it was more of a Larry Mullen junior. But
we say all that because I'm not really sure whether
or not we should speak in the past tense on
this with a lot of the stuff.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Well, today's the day. So, like you said, yesterday, it
was the last day that USAD existed as an independent
agency in the US federal government. Today's the day that
it got absorbed into the State Department. And I believe
also today the State Department Secretary of State. Marco Rubio,
the former senator from Florida, announced that there is going
(02:32):
to be some sort of new foreign aid agency called
America First, which is a mind bender. Is it really yes?
So that it's not fully going away, it's just going
to be restructured. They're going to be doing it differently.
And it's really hard to say. It's really hard to
(02:52):
get across how big of a deal it is that
something like USAID specifically is being done away with wholesale.
The mothball done really abruptly, really quickly. It's not being
kind of slowly rolled back or anything like that. It
just got its head cut off right right within six
months after being announced. It was just done. And it's,
(03:15):
of course, because we're talking about the United States, it's
a political hot button issue. Everything is a political hot
button issue, but this one should not be divided between
the left and the right. Like this is how America
influenced the entire world for decades. Some of it was
really bad, some of it was really good. But I
(03:38):
feel like me personally, it needed a lot of restructuring.
But I think it was a good infrastructure, a good
apparatus that just needed to be retooled. I think it
was a little ham fisted, to say the least, to
just stop it immediately. That's my take on it.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Yeah, I agree. And for a second there a few
minutes ago, I thought you were going to say Marco
Ruby said it was now called America.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Yeah, is that a Team America reference?
Speaker 1 (04:06):
I think yeah? That was from that movie, right.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I think so? I hope, yeah, I think it was too.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I saw that that was a who was it? There
was a Democratic House member senator the other day that
was as far as what you were talking about, and
we're going to get into the numbers here and the
history of everything, but he was talking about kind of
what you were saying was like just kind of shuddering
this guys. If the budget of the United States is
the height of the ceiling of this room, and it
(04:33):
was a big room. He said, the budget for USAID
is these two credit cards stacked on each other.
Speaker 2 (04:38):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
And he said, you know, to there has been waste
in there, and there has been some fraud, and we're
going to cover that stuff because we like to be
even handed. Sure, he said, and that's it at its worst,
but at its best, you're shuddering something that costs so
little money for us that has saved tens of dozens
of millions of lives of people, and not only just
(04:59):
like life saving, but as you'll see, just influence for
people around the world to like Bono said, like to
some people around the world, US eight is America, and
that's like they're the people that came in and helped
us when we were at our most dire. That's the
United States.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Yeah, yeah, So hopefully we'll kind of get it across.
If you're already mad, you know, politically speaking, just settle
down and listen, because we're not. We're not approaching this
from like a no Obama's right kind of thing. It's like, like,
just listen to this and make up your own mind.
We're not going to try to steer you. We were
just sharing our own opinions on it. We're allowed to
(05:34):
have those because we're thinking feeling human beings.
Speaker 1 (05:36):
That's right, all right. So the US historically is the
single humanitarian the largest single humanitarian aid donor in the world.
We supplied about forty percent of humanitarian aid in twenty
twenty four. As either the wealthiest or one of the
wealthiest countries in the world, foreign assistance falls into these
(05:57):
broad categories when it and again this is all foreign assistance.
US eight is within that, as we'll see, but humanitarian
assistance is about twenty five percent of it. And this
is like you know, medicine, food, and shelter to save
people after epidemics and disasters and famine. Development and assistance
is sixty percent. Those are programs installed to develop democratic
(06:22):
nations economically, politically, socially. And then the last smaller piece,
smallest piece is security funding fifteen percent. It's not a
part of the US military. Their programs to help strengthen
foreign militaries and foreign police to you know, get their
act together and instill some sort of rule of law
where there might not be any.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Yeah, and we don't want to be polyannis about this.
Like USA, it identified the police and training and outfitting
and helping financially the police in different countries is like
the best way to tap into that local that nations
like the pol keeping your pulse on that nation's local stuff,
(07:03):
right to because the police are the ones who like
suppress riots and suppress demonstrations. They're the ones who arrest people.
Like bringing in the military is way too big of
a deal. The police can do it, so USA definitely
focused on training police. That was a big one too,
and that just kind of peels back the layer because
(07:23):
right now, Chuck, let me just say this and I'll stop.
There's a lot of really like sunny, glowing, like really
fairly not fully realistic talk about USAID and what it does.
It does a lot of this stuff, but it leaves
out a lot of the darker side. And I think
you have to take it as the whole thing to
(07:44):
fully understand its value in the world.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Yeah, absolutely, and that's our aim here. But if you're
talking about since World War Two, we've distributed about four
trillion dollars and today dollars to foreign assistance, which is
a lot of money. But like I mentioned earlier, with
a little credit card metaphor that I ganked from that senator,
as a percentage of our federal budget, foreign aid accounts
(08:09):
for one percent of our total government spending.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
And that's all foreign aid. The USAID's portion is zero
point five percent. So just us AID has less than
a percent of the federal budget.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
Just two credit cards laying on the floor, right, Maybe
credit card wasn't the best thing to use, like insurance
card or something, or that probably wouldn't have been good either.
Library card, how about that?
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, don't talk about insurance.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Yeah, library cards are not controversial, right.
Speaker 2 (08:41):
Yeah, A little bit controversial, sure, all right, especially school libraries.
Speaker 1 (08:45):
Since nineteen sixty one, most of this foreign aid has
come through the US Aid Office because that's when it
was established, the US Agency for International Development, created by
John F. Kennedy, and the idea was, as we'll see,
was to create what he called or what everybody calls
soft power around the world because it was a time
(09:07):
during you know, as you'll see, during the Cold War
when the influences of the Soviet Union in China were worrisome,
and Kennedy saw the writing on the wall and was like, hey,
I think, like we need to get in there before
other countries get in there with their communism and spread
our message of democracy by helping assist them.
Speaker 2 (09:30):
Yeah, which was like totally in step with the containment
policy of keeping communism and checking keeping it from spreading,
rather than using the military every time. You could also basically,
you know, grease some palms around the world, and these
countries that were hanging in the balance in the Third World,
you could sway them over the democracy side. And they
could become an ally and trading partner of the US.
(09:53):
Why not.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
Yeah, And you can trace the roots of this back
to the Marshall Plan when in nineteen forty seven, post
World War Two, Secretary State George Marshall said, Hey, we
got to rebuild Europe and put a lot of money
into that. I think it was about one hundred and
seventy five billion and today dollars. And he claimed at
the time that it was a quote not directed against
any country or doctrine, but against hunger, poverty, desperation and chaos,
(10:14):
which is partly true. But what was also true was
the Marshall Plan was to stop the Soviets and stop
Stalin from going in further to Europe, and like we said,
sort of plant the American flag over there in a way.
And this was one of the tools usaid was one
of the tools, one of the bigger tools during the
Cold War to establish our influences like a country that's
(10:36):
trying to do good.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
Yeah, this was helped along. I think the Marshall Plan
was nineteen forty seven, did you say that. Yeah, Like
later on in the fifties, it was helped along by
a couple of MIT economists Walt Rostaw and Max Milliken,
and they basically said, this Marshall plan that we used
to rebuild Europe and keep countries from falling into the
(10:58):
hands of the Soviets and Communists, this is a good idea,
even outside of the context of rebuilding after a World war.
This should just be part of American policy.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, and Kennedy liked this idea eventually so much. Senator
Kennedy at the time would hire Walt Rostau as a
policy advisor on his staff, and when he was elected president,
he appointed him as his deputy national security advisor. And
Kennedy before, you know, when he was a young congressman,
he was not into foreign assistants. He was like, America first,
we got to help ourselves first. But then he went
(11:30):
on a seven week congressional trip in nineteen fifty one
to Pakistan, Israel, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Korea, Japan, and what
is now Vietnam, French Indo, China at the time, and
he was like, you know what, it's I'm all for
the military, but it can't just be a military exercise.
We got to have an economic stake in this, and
(11:53):
we got to do that through foreign aid.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
Yeah, there was also a book that helped change his
mind a few years later, The Ugly American. It was
published in nineteen fifty eight. It was a bestseller, and
essentially it was a fictionalized version of the experiences of
the authors as diplomats in pre war Vietnam, and it
almost satirizes American diplomacy at the time, which was you
(12:20):
had diplomats who were at parties with other diplomats in
gated communities, way far away from the people of the
country they were trying to serve. And these guys argued, no,
you need to immerse yourself in it. You need to
learn the language, like you have to find out what
these people really need or else all you're doing is
patronizing them and wasting money. And it had a huge
(12:41):
impact on America in general. But also Kennedy, who is like,
this is my north star here in guiding how foreign
policy in America should go, and even took out a
page in The New York Times, a full page ad
saying this is a great book. How was that?
Speaker 1 (13:03):
It was pretty good? This, you know. Shortly thereafter, in
nineteen fifty nine, when Cuba falls to Castro, all of
a sudden, it's like, hey, this is literally happening right
out our outside our back door. So the time is now.
He didn't create the idea for foreign aid. We had
programs at the time, Food for Peace, the Development Loan Fund,
(13:25):
and others. But Kennedy was the one in March of
nineteen sixty one to wrap that all up, tie a
bow on it, and say here, Congress, this is USAID
and this is this is a new program along with
the Peace Corps that we're creating that like the great
ambitions that America should pursue. And Congress got on board.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Yeah. And one of the big things that he pushed
for with the creation of USAID in particular was five
year budgets.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Ah good luck.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
Yeah, so foreign aid up to that point and then
after that point, because he didn't get the five of
your budgets he was looking for. The USA budget was
tied to annual federal budgets and so it was you know,
it suffered the vaggarees of congressional fights over budgets that
happened every year. But the point was the reason Kennedy
(14:15):
wanted a five year budget was because if his USA
people were going to these countries that were like should
we go communists or democratic? They needed to come to
them and say, hey, your sympathetic, sympathetic to democracy, you're
running for president. Here's what we can do for you
(14:37):
that you can actually build a platform around, because we're
going to guarantee that you're going to get this funding
X number of dollars for five years because we want
this country to be a democracy, and we want to
make you the leader of the democracy any way we can.
And Congress was still like, no, we're not going to
do that.
Speaker 1 (14:54):
Yeah, I feel like that's a good time for a break,
and we'll come back and talk about some successes of
USAID over the years right after this. All right, so
(15:26):
we're back in this promise, we're going to talk about
some of the success stories of USAID over the years.
More than half of our funding for USAID in the
nineteen sixties went towards something we talked about quite a
bit over the years here and there called the Green Revolution,
which was a campaign led by doctor Norman Borlog. He
(15:47):
wrote too many in history to fight hunger and asia
by saying, hey, let's modernize your agricultural practices. Let's bring
them into the new age with your irrigation techniques, fertilization technius,
how to rotate crops, getting you better crop yields even
when it's a drought going on. And he was very,
(16:07):
very successful at this and changed the world. And this
ran through USAID.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Yeah, so today's estimates put the number of lives that
Norman Borlog and the Green Revolution and USAID for overseeing
this program saved was probably about a quarter of a
billion people. So right out of the gate, one of
the first things USA does is save a quarter of
a billion lives from starvation. That's good enough. But at
the same time, Chairman Mao is pushing the Great Leap
(16:36):
forward in China where he's completely restructuring the agricultural industry,
taking a ton of peasant farmers, putting them in iron
and steel factories, and drastically limiting the food supply so
that forty five million Chinese citizens die in three years.
(16:58):
So people were able to look around and like, wow,
this communist idea really didn't work. This USAID idea worked
really well. Tell me a little more about USAID, and Chuck,
I feel like I should also say it's just come
to be. You used to work for Peace Corps, not
as a Peace Corps volunteer, but as like one of
the people in the Home office, and I told her
(17:19):
we were recording on USAID, and she pointed out very quickly,
it's USAID. Well, we've been saying USAID this whole time.
Apologies to everybody, I say, we just keep saying USAID.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
I think most people say USAID, and I identify it
as USAID, So I think that's fine.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
Okay, kid, it's just you me who calls it USAID.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
No, no, no, I'm just saying I think will be
forgiven because most people read that as USAID and they
know what we're talking about.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
Gotcha, Okay.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
One of the ones I want to mention, well, I
mentioned earlier the initiative launch launched by President Bush in
two thousand and three, the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS relief,
and what a success that has been. But the one
that really gets me is smallpox. That this was a
deadly disease in the nineteen sixties that was killing kids
(18:07):
all over the world, and we eradicated that thanks to USAID.
How's that very nice partnering with the CDC to establish
an anti smallpox campaign in each country? Or it was
a big, big problem, and they have saved over the
past eleven years by completely eradicating smallpox basically millions of
(18:28):
lies every single year.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yes, in the only two places in the world where
you can find smallpox on the planet today is in
Siberia and Atlanta. Yeah, that's right, talking about saving lives,
not just from like you said, pepfar and from smallpox,
but the us AIDS taking on tuberculosis has saved an
(18:50):
estimated fifty eight million lives since two thousand, and I
believe that estimate was either from twenty seventeen or twenty twenty,
so it's probably higher than that by now. And then
malaria too. I think they estimate that since two thousand,
the President's Malaria Initiative under USAID has saved nearly twelve
(19:11):
million lives, and that in countries where the President's Malaria
Initiative exists, there's been a forty eight percent decline in
malaria deaths on average. So like they're literally saving actual
lives by going in and being like, oh, this is
a real problem. Let's fund the people who are working
to combat this in the place where it's a problem,
(19:33):
and it's having these demonstrable effects like positive effects like
saving people's lives.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Yeah, and they have their little American flag patch on
the whole time. People know exactly where it's coming from.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
That's right. They don't put that Canada flag on their
backpack and lie to everyone.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
And that was even a thing when I traveled Europe
in the mid nineties. Yeah, for sure, was a Canadian
flag because they're like, we're not American. Please don't be
fooled by my right.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Exactly. I have no love for Bill Clinton. I don't
even even know who that is. Why would I even
bring up Bill Clinton.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
We said we were going to cover this even handedly,
and we you know, there have been plenty of criticisms
and controversies over the years with USAID. I guess which
one should I talk about? How about this one? It's
not a perfect program. There have been all kinds of
what you call a devil's bargain over the years trying
to fight communism, one of which was, you know, we've
(20:31):
talked in the past about CIA engineered coups across the
world to topple dictatorial regimes. Foreign assistants provided by USAID
was used a lot of times as a negotiating chip
to basically win allies here and there. So that's you know,
maybe not the purest use of what it was set
out to be. No.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
A good example of that is Afghanistan. Us aid's involvement
in Afghanistan after the US invaded is just widely considered
a total disaster. Afghanistan received more than one hundred billion
dollars in foreign aid from the United States and as
something like forty percent of it went directly to government officials, warlords,
(21:16):
drug lords, insurgents who bought weapons with it and then
fought the United States with it. Yeah, not a good look.
And I found a statistic too that over fifteen years,
usa'd spent almost one and a half billion dollars just
on helping Afghan farmers transitioned from opium production to anything
(21:38):
but opium essentially, and the opium farmers in Afghanistan said,
thanks a lot for the money. Where's going to use
this instead to expand our opium production as it stands,
And between twenty thirteen and twenty fifteen, in Kandahar Province alone,
opium cultivation more than doubled like one hundred and nineteen
percent in two years because of U USAID money which
(22:01):
was now going not just to insurgents, but to create
the heroin supply in the United States.
Speaker 1 (22:07):
Yeah, black eye on that one for sure. More recently,
there was a company called Chemonics that was awarded the
single largest contract ever from USA. It was a nine
and a half billion dollar contract and the goal there
was to streamline delivery worldwide of medical supplies, you know,
mosquito nets, contraceptives, vaccine, stuff like that. And it was
(22:30):
very poorly managed by USAID and there was Chemonics was
involved with false reporting between them and their partners, and
it was just a pretty big debacle, and you know,
USAID continued to pour money into it even as it
was floundering, which again another stain on their reputation, which
(22:51):
you know, we say all this stuff to fairly report,
but also to point out that, like it makes it
a really easy target when you can say, you know,
we spent nine and a half billion dollars on this
thing that was mismanaged, and you know, fraud like that
is definitely something to root out. You know, no one's
saying like that stuff's okay.
Speaker 2 (23:09):
And then, Chuck, there's one more terrible story of USAID
dropping the ball that we just have to share. Can
we take it away. Then, Well, there's a guy named
Alan Gross, who I guess was an IT dude, who
was hired as a subcontractor for USAID to go to
Cuba in two thousand and nine and set up alternate
(23:30):
access to the Internet for the small Jewish community in Cuba.
There a few things USAID was illegal in Cuba at
the time, probably still is. The government controlled access to
the Internet in Cuba, probably still does. And the Jewish
community in Cuba did not ask for alternate Internet access.
It was just thrust upon them. So Alan Gross was
(23:55):
discovered and arrested as a spy because USAID sent him
in there. The guy barely even spoke Spanish from what
I read, and the United States had to trade three
Cuban actual spies that they'd had since the nineties to
get Alan Gross back from Cuba.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
Oh yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
Do you remember that? One?
Speaker 1 (24:13):
I do.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
It's just so nuts and just so misguided that I
could not include it.
Speaker 1 (24:19):
Yeah, agreed.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Yeah, let's talk about it being an easy target, because
the thing is, they have so many different things going
on in so many parts of the world that inevitably
some of them are going to turn out to be
crooked or rotten or poorly managed or a waste of money.
That's just that's a given. Nobody's I don't think debating that.
What I think is important as how the agency or
(24:45):
an agency or anybody in that position responds to that
kind of thing.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Right.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
So, there's been like a few examples of controversies that
were non controversies because USA had handled it really well.
A big one was a USA charity of charity that
the USAID funded in Kenya, The Children of God Relief Institute,
ran an orphanage for children in Kenya who had been
affected by AIDS, and in twenty twenty one, USAID was
(25:14):
told by a whistleblower that this charity was covering up
rampant sex abuse of children and its orphanage.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Yeah. The USAID Inspector General said that the Children of
God Relief Institute quote knew or should have known of
multiple incidents of child sex abuse. And USAID found out
about this, and they cut off funding in twenty twenty
three and told the Kenyan police like, here's everything we
have on this.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
Yeah. That's another kind of indirect service that USAID provides
is they do high quality international inspections of something like
a single charity in Kenya, and then they shared the
information the results of their inspections, their investigations, and sometimes
it can bring criminal charges against people who who were
(26:00):
doing wrong. But really USA idea is making sure that
their money's not being spent or going to bad actors.
But it has this other rippling effect that I think
in some ways actually provides justice that otherwise might not
have been provided.
Speaker 1 (26:16):
Yeah, totally. You know, another sort of annoying way that
modern politics works in this country is the you know,
sort of homing in on a single either SoundBite or
just something that they know will be super gravvy. And
both sides do this. I'm not like picking on any
particular side here of you know, of the way we
(26:38):
absorb our content these days, and like a big example
of this is, you know, we spent fifty million dollars
on condoms in Gaza, and that's just not true. That's
not what happened, but no one cares to know the truth.
It seems like as long as they can run that
headline and tweet about it, you know.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
Yeah, it's just bad in fall around the fifty million
dollars is so this group was actually getting an injection
of one hundred million dollars. They were getting it in
fifty and then another fifty later, so it wasn't even
just fifty million dollars. There was one hundred million dollars.
It was going to a group called the International Medical
Corps working in Gaza. They provide emergency medical services and
(27:20):
they do have a there is some family planning that
they provide. Services they provide, but that includes way more
than just contraception, and that's not anywhere near a focus
of they what they do in Gaza anywhere else with
their emergency medical services. And then to top it all off,
(27:40):
the director of the International Medical Corps said, the money
that we've already gotten out, a single dollar has been
spent on condoms anyway. So this whole thing is just
totally not just blown out of proportion, it's wrong. And yet,
like you said, that's the SoundBite that gets reported all
throughout the news on any part of the spectrum. And
it's just like, it's just such a bad time to
(28:04):
take in information right now.
Speaker 1 (28:07):
Yeah, it's pretty depressing. I totally agree.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Should we take another break?
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Yeah, all right, but much more.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Yeah, Yeah, we talked about some highs and lows. We're
going to talk a little bit more about that and
whether or not the USA I D is a good
investment for the United States.
Speaker 2 (28:20):
Right after this, so you said we were going to
(28:46):
talk a little bit about a few more highs and lows.
Just today, I would guess this was strategically released the
British Medical journal. Very respective, British Medical Journal of the
Lancet released a report that said that since I think
two thousand maybe two thousand and two, I can't remember,
(29:07):
an estimated ninety one million deaths preventable deaths have been
prevented because of US AID funding. Pretty impressive.
Speaker 1 (29:15):
Ninety one million people, yes, all right.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
But and this in like a twenty twenty five years
something like that, it's not since they started. But they
also estimate that within the next five years, by twenty thirty,
about fourteen million preventable deaths won't have been prevented because
of the cuts to US AID funding, right, which is
(29:38):
not good.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Now, it's not. And you know that that's like that
kind of brings us to whether or not it's a
good investment for the US. You know, we've kind of
mentioned some of the highs and lows, and at its
best you are saving, you know, hundreds of millions of
lives since its inception at US worse cost billions of
dollars for you know, know, dictators to line their pockets
(30:02):
sometimes or criminals to get funded, and arms get funded
and drugs get funded. So it's it's a reasonable thing
to put it under a microscope for sure. A little
bit more about the budget, you know, twenty twenty four,
the budget was twenty one point seven billion dollars, which
is point three of the total federal spending, which is
(30:22):
six point eight trillion dollars point three percent compared to
four percent for the Department of Education also going away,
and the Department of Defense at thirteen percent compared to
point three percent. Since nineteen eighty, USAID spending has increased
one hundred and six percent, while overall government spending has
(30:44):
increased close to two hundred percent. So it's not like
it's even kept pace with our spending as a government
overall since nineteen eighty.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Right, Right, So that's the best you can do essentially,
when you try to talk about whether it's a good investment,
is point out how lit we actually spend on it? Right, Yeah,
you know, because the it's so it's basically impossible to
calculate the return on investment because the return on investment
is worldwide goodwill toward the United States, and the United
(31:15):
States can be like, hey, you know that favor you
owe me, I'm calling it in because we're putting a
military alliance together, or this giant American business wants to
start doing business in your country, whatever it is. And
that is actually something that made me curious about why
Trump was so hell bent on shutting down USAID, because
(31:39):
it's not like he's not into people owing him favors.
With USAID, it's an unwritten thing like you owe America
favors now, like you're our friend, but it's not like
we're just giving you money, and it's just strictly goodwill,
just strictly life saving. That's the state of goal. But
there's also an undercurrent there where like if we call
(31:59):
it favor you better, you better come to our help.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah that, yeah, that is fairly perplexing. I never really
thought about like that because I don't know, kind of
one of his things is leverage.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
And right, yeah, that's a better way to put it.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
That keeps that leverage in place. So yeah, it's very
interesting as far as what Americans think about this. This
is a poll from Pew Research in twenty nineteen, so
it's a little bit old. It might be skewed a
little bit differently now, but they thought it was kind
of split. You know, thirty thirty thirty thirty percent or
thirty three ish percent thought that we should increase foreign
(32:35):
aid spending, about thirty three percent said we should reduce it,
and about a third said we should keep it about
the same. Yeah, So take that for what it's worth.
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Yeah. Also, it's speaking of polls, Apparently, polls consistently show
that Americans grossly overestimate how much the US spends on
foreign aid. Typically, Americans think we spend about twenty five
percent or a quarter of our national budget on foreign aid.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
That's staggering that.
Speaker 2 (33:05):
People think that. Again, remember we spend roughly one percent.
I think it was one point two percent back in
twenty twenty three. So, like, just the difference from perception
is not so. I wonder how many people out there
are like, wait, it's that and we're not doing that anymore.
I wonder if that's going to be an outcome of
it or not. I also feel like, you know, we
should wait and see what this America First Agency's policies
(33:27):
and things are, if they reactivate some of these existing
networks or infrastructure that USA had already had, or if
they're just starting over from scratch. So I'm curious about that.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, to insert my
opinion here, because we are real humans and we have them.
What frustrates me the most, I think is that this idea,
like you just said, like there are people out there
that think we spend twenty five percent of our money
on other countries, which is a joke, that they will
be like, you know, how much better my life is
going to be when we cut off funding to help
(34:00):
these people around the world and help us instead. When
that doesn't.
Speaker 2 (34:05):
Happen, Yeah, that's a good point, and.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
When their lives don't change at all in any way.
I just wonder if anyone's going to look back and say, yeah,
what a I mean, it might be fifty years from
now they're like, what a horrible thing that we did
to not help the most vulnerable people of the world.
When people thought that all of a sudden their life
was going to look better in the United States because
(34:28):
we stopped saving the lives of others.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
I don't know. I feel like we as Americas have
really demonstrated the ability to do all sorts of mental
gymnastics to support our points, So who knows.
Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
One other thing that's a a big problem with just
rolling back USA, especially so abruptly, is US eight is
a thorn in autocrat sides around the world. Like if USA,
if you allow USA to work in your country, you
got to take what you like and what you don't
like you can't. It's not a buffet. So USAID supports
(35:03):
a lot of like pro democracy groups and organizations and
countries that are kind of short on democracy, and now
those groups are going to be left without funding, also
very importantly left without implicit American support for them and
them not being abused or their human rights being abused,
(35:23):
and they're basically just being left out to dry, and
autocrats are going to be able to do more of
what they do. So it is very much a blow
to global democracy as well to just lose USAID. And
there is one more thing that is causing concern among
people who are concerned about this, and that is that
this is going to leave a vacuum around the world
(35:45):
in foreign aid that China in particular is going to
be happy to step in and fill. So they will
be the ones growing influence around the world. And they're
already at it. Actually, the US spent three point eight
trillion in foreign aid over the last eighty years since
World War Two. China has spent one trillion already just
(36:07):
in the last twelve years. So not only will we
be losing our ability to make and keep friends, we'll
be giving our biggest rival a chance to gain even more.
Speaker 1 (36:19):
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And you know, if you're depending
on what side of the fence you're on with this,
you might think, hey, guys, you didn't talk about this, this,
and this and those were all bad programs. Are there
other people that might say, you didn't talk about this,
this is and those are all great programs distributed through
usaid and that you know, we just don't have hours
and hours to go over every single thing. We tried
(36:41):
to cover a little bit of both.
Speaker 2 (36:44):
Yeah, I feel like it's worth saying then there are
like you, especially if you're critical of America's influence around
the world, and especially the underhanded version of it. USA
is very much involved in that. So if you're critical
of that, you were probably critical of USAID, and you're
probably not exactly shedding a tear for USAID being rolled back.
(37:07):
That's definitely one point of view out there. I think
if we're talking about trying to be fair here, that's
I think that's an important thing to point out.
Speaker 1 (37:15):
Yeah, for sure, so USAID.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I think hopefully we've presented enough info that you can
make up your own mind. We certainly respect you trying
to do that. Don't just listen to us, and of
course that means it's a listener mayw.
Speaker 1 (37:31):
Yeah, since Josh just said don't listen to us.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
I think that's a good rule of thumb, right.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Great advice from a podcaster. Hey guys, this is this
is another chuck correction. It was kind of on both
of us. I guess okay, Hey guys, longtime listener, really
enjoy the variety of topics. For the first time in
ten plus years, I feel compelled to write in and
ask for a correction. During the Sunset Boulevard episode Tangent,
you guys are talking about American graffiti and surmise that it
(37:59):
was based on the Sunset Boulevard like cruising zone that
is not correct, guys, I never do this. American Graffiti
is based on coming of age in Modesto, California.
Speaker 2 (38:12):
That's what we said.
Speaker 1 (38:14):
This is where George Lucas grew up. Guys. The movie
references a number of local streets roads in nearby cities.
It was not filmed here, but it was definitely based
on the car cruising culture of Modesto in the sixties.
And I didn't know that rich Olm from a Modesto native,
and I wish I had known that because I link
Modesto in my mind to one of my top three
(38:35):
modern bands of all time. Oh Granddaddy out of Modesto.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
Oh Grandaddy? Yeah, they were great. Yes, I thought you
were going to talk about red tail or red Hawk beer.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Oh no, no, no, is that a Modesto beer.
Speaker 2 (38:49):
Yeah, it's really good.
Speaker 1 (38:50):
Help to try that, It's all we got. That was
rich That was rich Olm.
Speaker 2 (38:55):
Well where were you when we needed you? Rich when
we were talking about it being set in LA that's
my question.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Not a Modesto because he's a Modesto native, so probably
not still a Modesto.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
No, he could still be a Modesto.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Yeah, but I figured he would say current Modesto resident
and here's where I live.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Maybe maybe okay, Well either way, Rich, maybe you can
email back in and let us know which is the case.
And while we're waiting for an email from Rich, also
waiting for an email from you, you can send it
to us at stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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