By: Dr Matevž Tomšič
The multi-billionaire Elon Musk has clearly taken his mission to overhaul the U.S. federal administration very seriously. His Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is operating at full speed. Every ministry, office, and agency under federal jurisdiction is now under scrutiny. And right from the start, the “skeletons in the closet” began to fall out, revealing that American taxpayers’ money has been widely spent on matters that have nothing to do with ensuring their well-being.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has come under particularly heavy scrutiny. This agency is supposed to focus on providing aid to improve living conditions in so-called Third World countries, such as food assistance and healthcare. However, during the administration of former President Joe Biden, it turned out that USAID was funding all sorts of unrelated projects. White House Press Secretary Caroline Leavitt recently highlighted a few examples. USAID funded: the promotion of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in workplaces in Serbia, the production of a musical on “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in Ireland, a transgender opera in Colombia, the publication of a transgender comic book in Peru. Yes, all of this was considered “international development aid”. And the list of such “achievements” goes on.
It is evident that USAID had become one of the biggest ATMs for pushing the woke agenda and financing leftist indoctrination on a global scale. Projects like these did nothing to advance the interests of Americans – nor did they contribute to the well-being of people in target countries. Instead, they served to promote the ideology of the far-left wing of the Democratic Party, which effectively controlled policy and directed the actions of the previous federal administration. (Had Kamala Harris, Biden’s ideological successor, been elected president, this agenda would have continued unchecked.) USAID funds were channelled into cultural institutions and NGOs worldwide – essentially financing messages aligned with feminism, multiculturalism, the LGBT agenda, and other neo-leftist ideological currents. Tens of millions of dollars even made their way to Slovenia, with beneficiaries including media censors like Ošto and similar organisations. Given the sheer scale of taxpayer money misused for political-ideological purposes, it is entirely understandable that the new U.S. leadership decided to dismantle USAID altogether.
Predictably, the decision to shut down USAID sparked outrage among progressives. Protests erupted, joined by Democratic Party representatives, who lamented that millions of lives would now be at risk. But are they really concerned about saving lives, or are they worried that there will be no more taxpayer-funded transgender operas and comics? No more online censorship in the name of political correctness? What they truly fear is that the financial pipeline supporting their propaganda will be permanently cut off – and that American taxpayers will finally realise how recklessly their money was squandered.
The criticism directed at Musk is also laughable. Detractors argue that he is an unelected figure and therefore has no legitimate authority to make such decisions. However, Musk was not elected but appointed as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) by the duly elected President of the United States, who has full legitimacy to make such appointments. Those questioning Musk’s legitimacy had no problem with unelected bureaucrats distributing taxpayer money before. Such objections are especially absurd when coming from Europeans, considering that countless decisions in the EU are made by unelected Brussels officials. In fact, the European Union could use its own version of DOGE!