Information about the appalling waste of American taxpayers' money continues to pour out like pus from a lanced boil.
Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency team were tasked by the Trump administration with cleaning up the federal government, exposing and ending waste, fraud and outright theft. Right on cue, those whose livelihoods depend upon the unintended largesse of taxpayers filed lawsuits, getting multiple federal judges to issue arguably unconstitutional injunctions, in an effort to prevent that exposure and keep the money flowing.
A staggering amount of this grift has been run through unaccountable and unsupervised aid agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Last week, I wrote about the 2014 documentary Poverty, Inc., which details the horrific damage international aid has done to poor countries.
I was initially inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to those who have dumped products and commodities into third-world nations, destroying their own productive capabilities, making it impossible for indigenous entrepreneurs and small business owners to compete or grow their companies, and — inexplicably — giving incredible leverage and power to the dictators and corruptocrats who run impoverished nations' governments.
Upon reflection, I don't think it's well-intentioned but misguided. I think it's deliberate.
Here's why:
The most vocal defenders of USAID and the status quo are the same people who claim that humans cause climate change, and who insist that the only way to prevent it is to limit agriculture and manufacturing, eliminate gas-powered vehicles and appliances, reduce travel and single-family home ownership, eat bugs instead of meat, and much more.
In other words, the destruction of Western civilization: our way of life, our prosperity and our liberty.
The United States is the big target because of our entrepreneurial capitalism, which is the foundation of small business creation, and the massive middle class those businesses made possible. Entrepreneurial capitalism creates economic power, and economic power produces political power. Without that financial independence, we become slaves to the government and those controlling it.
Just like recipients of foreign aid.
The COVID-19 lockdowns were a taste — and perhaps a test — of what happens if the government can hobble or close small businesses. In an average year, about 600,000 new businesses start, and about that same number close their doors. But during the COVID-19 lockdowns, we lost 800,000 businesses.
It would have been much worse were it not for governors like South Dakota's Kristi Noem, who never imposed lockdowns, and Florida's Ron DeSantis, who reopened businesses, beaches and schools earlier and kept tourism afloat.
In other words, it was America's federalist system — 50 states with independent governments — that prevented our leviathan federal government (and functionaries like Anthony Fauci) from bringing the entire country down.
Who defended or exploited economically crippling lockdowns? The World Health Organization. The World Economic Forum (which viewed the pandemic as an opportunity for the "Great Reset.") The United Nations. Bill Gates and the other globalists.
And, of course, then-president Joe Biden, who said whatever he was told to, even if it was demonstrably false.
If you're trying to destroy the thriving middle class that prevents your complete political and economic domination in developed nations, why on earth would you ever let poor nations develop?
You wouldn't. You would keep those people poor, ignorant and powerless.
You would profess your deep compassion for the cameras while handing billions of dollars to corrupt government officials, who you knew would dispense it to their crooked and incompetent cronies, thus ensuring that those heads of state would remain forever under your thumb, while no real solutions to impoverished nations' problems would ever — ever — be implemented.
You would talk a lot about the "obligations" of powerful nations but never use the actual power you have to promote change that mattered.
In Poverty, Inc. Ghanaian software entrepreneur Herman Chinery-Hesse explains that the most serious impediment to economic success in Ghana is the inability to own property. Without it, small business owners have no collateral against which they can borrow for business expansion.
Chinery-Hesse calls out feckless global do-gooders who profess to want to "help" Africa yet never address the most serious underlying issues.
"Property rights are a terrible problem," he says, "a terrible, terrible problem. ... We haven't got clean title in Ghana. ... The last time I had a meeting at the World Bank, I asked the World Bank officials: 'Hey, you've been working with our government all these years. You know this is at the bottom of our problems. What are you doing about it? Are you saying that for 20 years, you just forgot that?' ... I don't see that a lot of work has been done there, or (that) a lot of progress has been made there."
If governments and aid organizations truly wanted to improve conditions in places like Ghana, they would pressure those governments to make necessary changes to property and other laws, and liberate entrepreneurs from oppressive regulations, by conditioning receipt of aid on those changes.
But they don't.
Or consider — if political leaders in the European Union truly wanted strong European nations, they wouldn't demand that member countries let in millions of Muslim males, refuse to require migrants to integrate into the local cultures, fail to prosecute (and deport) those who have raped, trafficked or exploited young European girls, and choose instead to prosecute European natives who dare protest or post complaints about it on social media.
But they do.
It shouldn't surprise us, therefore, when Musk and DOGE expose the outrageous expenditures that USAID has given to enemies like the Taliban.
"Foreign aid" has been a massive fraud designed to cover up efforts to steal from the American public, undermine and weaken us, bring us to our knees. And some of our own leaders have been paid well to look the other way.
Viewed in that light, it's clear why "aid" organizations have continued practices that prevent citizens of the poorest nations with the most corrupt governments from ever lifting themselves out of poverty.
In fairness, I think that most employees and volunteers within these aid organizations believe they are helping, as do the millions of Americans who have donated to them. But as "Poverty, Inc." showed, those who see first-hand the damage that has been done have been trying to call attention to the adverse effects of aid for decades.
Their cries have fallen on deaf ears. Until now.
Now that Americans can see the extent of the theft from us, perhaps they will demand answers from those pulling the strings. Because it certainly looks like it was all part of the same plan.
Laura Hollis is an attorney and university professor who has taught courses in law and business for more than 30 years. Her legal publications have appeared in the Temple Law Review, Cardozo Law Review and the Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy. She is a nationally syndicated columnist whose work has been featured in dozens of print and online publications. Read reports by Professor Hollis — More Here.