Gallup: Few Major U.S. Political Figures Rated Positively on Balance

According to the website that dgzweda linked to:

The bill provides appropriations to

• the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID),
• the State Department and the President for International Security Assistance, and

• International Financial Institutions for Multilateral Assistance.

That simply says that it provided funding for USAID. I have not seen anything that says that it authorizes these specific expenditures:

• $1.5 million to “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities”
• $70,000 for production of a “DEI musical” in Ireland
• $2.5 million for electric vehicles for Vietnam
• $47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Colombia
• $32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru
• $2 million for sex changes and “LGBT activism” in Guatemala
• $6 million to fund tourism in Egypt
• Hundreds of thousands of dollars for a non-profit linked to designated terrorist organizations — even AFTER an inspector general launched an investigation
• Millions to EcoHealth Alliance — which was involved in research at the Wuhan lab
• “Hundreds of thousands of meals that went to al Qaeda-affiliated fighters in Syria”
• Funding to print “personalized” contraceptives birth control devices in developing countries
• Hundreds of millions of dollars to fund “irrigation canals, farming equipment, and even fertilizer used to support the unprecedented poppy cultivation and heroin production in Afghanistan,” benefiting the Taliban

If JFK was authorized by executive order to oversee how USAID was implemented after congress passed a law to allow it, how come Trump is not authorized to oversee what is happening now? Further, the spending has been temporarily frozen for 90 days in order to determine what has been specifically mandated by congress. That money will eventually be allocated unless congress acts. Money that was not specifically spelled out by act of congress is discretionary and if can be redirected. If x amount of dollars were allocated by congress but USAID had the authority to spend it however they chose, why would you be upset that that money would now be available to feed starving people instead of promoting LGBTQ? How upset are you that those monies may no longer be available to promote democrat propaganda?

The question pending is if Trump did anything illegal in bypassing congress? It may be legal.

If there is something illegal about the Trump Administration has done in their attempt to get rid of government waste and corruption, it's their firing of 17 Inspection Generals without giving Congress 30 days notice and detailed reasons for why they fired them. What's frustrating about the United States DOGE System (USDS), is that there is no oversight watchdog group keeping them accountable.

I agree with Joel's concern about the inspector generals. I can support most of what Trump is doing and still have concerns. I think we all should have concerns about what our government is doing- including DOGE.

The problem is that there has been little to no oversight for any of our government agencies. DOGE is finally changing that. If we do have an agency overseeing DOGE who will oversee that agency? Then who will oversee the agency that is overseeing that agency? This really shines a light on how bloated and overgrown our government has become and why so many people have been calling for a MUCH smaller and streamlined federal government. If we can shrink all our government agencies then oversight of all of them will be much easier- including oversight of DOGE.

As we talk about bloated government, there is a call for abolishing the Dept. of Education. As soon as that conversation happens, then we hear people asking how the teachers will get paid. What they miss is that when Republicans are calling for abolishing the Department of Education, they are not calling for abolishing FUNDING for education. They are simply calling for abolishing the bureaucracy. If we no longer have to pay a bunch of bureaucrats at Dept. of Ed, then that money can go to hiring more teachers at the local level. Shrinking government does not necessarily mean that the citizens will end up with less.

>>If we do have an agency overseeing DOGE who will oversee that agency? Then who will oversee the agency that is overseeing that agency?<<

Yes, the “who watches the watchmen” problem. That’s an issue that’s been noted for a long time, at least as far back as Plato’s Republic, and probably much further. No agency will ever be able to operate without some kind of oversight, although in the case of the U.S., the ultimate oversight is supposed to be the people. Of course, the people can’t exercise their oversight when information is not available to them, and most of our government agencies have specialized in making that information hard or impossible to get.

Two things make me think that DOGE will be a little different, at least in the short term (again, all humans need oversight — it’s our nature, so DOGE, like any organization will have to be watched). 1. DOGE is publicizing what it is doing for all to see. 2. DOGE is supposed to be self-deleting on July 4th, 2026. I don’t know if they can or will meet that deadline, but it will be up to the people to convince Musk and/or Trump to stick to it. Of course, people being people, we tend to be lazy, just as we accuse the members of Congress of being. We don’t remove congressmen and congresswomen who don’t get the job done when we should. But it will still be up to the people to put pressure on DOGE to keep all the information open and available to us. I applaud that organization’s stated goals, but, like all institutions on earth, it’s made up of people, so will never be entirely trustworthy.

In the meantime, I’m just praying (like I do when I pray for all government leaders) that God will guide their hands, and I trust Him, not DOGE (or Trump), with my future.

The gravy train runs both ways. I'm thrilled with eliminating wasteful spending, but I'm not naive to think that Democrats are the only ones benefiting from the gravy train. Elon himself has received quite a bit of "gravy" from the government over the years, and I'd bet he hopes the power and position he has received by cozying up to Trump will earn him even more.

dgszweda wrote:

What bothers me is not the specific items Trump may be doing, I am bothered that Congress is not performing their role. They want the Executive branch to do it for them. The beauty is that Congress doesn't need the Executive branch for anything, really.

Senator Joni Earnst (R-IA) attempted to look into USAID spending before Trump retook the presidency. She was blocked and threatened. So how would congress know to vote to defund USAID if thy did not know what USAID was doing and could not even get access to know what they were doing? As you pointed out some of what they were doing was made public and Marco Rubio supported doing that part (we are all free to agree or disagree with his view on Tibet funding for example). But other parts were not known and congress was purposely kept in the dark. Now that the light is being shed leftists are upset. I am not upset that the truth is coming out and I am not upset that funding has been paused for 90 days until this information can be gathered. I support the decision of Secretary of State Rubio in implementing that 90 day pause. To say that congress is being defied and that spending that they approved is being permanently blocked is dishonest.

The answers ought to be pretty easy.
1. Forbid any agency or NGO that gets money from the government from donating to anything. Because they can then donate it to politicians.
2. The watchers are the taxpayers. ALL USAID type spending should be 100% visible to taxpayers, including accounting/audits. Taxpayers should be able to sue for breach of rules. Would that make USAID workers fear and quit? GREAT!

"Fact Check: USAID was formed by executive order of JFK. The information above by another poster, should not just be taken at face value."

FACT Check: Stop reading simple websites. John F. Kennedy created USAID through an executive after he was authorized by Congress. The Executive Order, states, "By virtue of the authority vested in me by the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961".

A President can't create an independent agency and fund it. He can create the mechanics of an agency through executive order, but Congress needs to create the heart of it first and fund it.

Well then it seems to me the current president should be able to modify/end it by EO. Otherwise it can ONLY ever grow. What am I missing?

One of the things that Elon Musk is noting as he searches through expenditures is that many of them were submitted and approved without a payment authorization code, rationale for the spending, or a cross check with the federal "Do Not Pay" list, and that early indications are that up to $100 billion was paid to individuals without a valid Social Security or even ID number. If it's even a tenth as bad as he suggests, I would suggest that heck needs to be raised about the matter. No company could survive if that were the case with their procurement systems, to put it mildly.

A good argument can be made (see the ever-cogent Andrew McCarthy) that Inspectors General violate the separation of powers. Indeed, the firing of the by the chief executive hopefully will precipitate a judicial finding that IG's are not permitted under the Constitution. Then maybe we the people will insist on transparency and enforce it at the ballot box and judge's bar.
We are rightly concerned about any given President having so much authority, but that is because the administrative state, which lies almost entirely in the executive branch is too large.

A good argument can be made (see the ever-cogent Andrew McCarthy) that Inspectors General violate the separation of powers. Indeed, the firing of the by the chief executive hopefully will precipitate a judicial finding that IG's are not permitted under the Constitution. Then maybe we the people will insist on transparency and enforce it at the ballot box and judge's bar.
We are rightly concerned about any given President having so much authority, but that is because the administrative state, which lies almost entirely in the executive branch is too large.

These are some good points. I have actually read some commentary that suggests that what Trump is doing and the challenges that he is facing are important so that we can get some supreme court rulings that will guide future administrations. Then they will hopefully have parameters that they have to stay within. With the current situation, Democrat administrations have had little to no pushback from the legacy media or judiciary while republican administrations find a lot of pushback no matter what they do. By having the supreme court weigh in, we will then have guidance to try to keep every administration on an equal playing field. I do not know if that will work or not, but it is a lofty goal.

Our county is currently building a new court house. Money has been approved for this project. If the project costs less than what was approved, does our county still have to pay someone that money? If they have a signed contract for building the courthouse that is less than the money that was approved, they could end up below budget. Often the commissioners approve spending so that they have a buffer in case of something unforeseen. If nothing unforeseen comes up, does that money HAVE to be spent. The progressives seem to think so. I do not.

A similar thing often happens with a church budget. The congregation votes to spend $8000 for an upgrade to the furnace. Then Bob says his brother in law has a plumbing and heating company that can get a name brand furnace for a discount and the project only costs $7000. Does the other $1000 have to be spent or does it need approval from the congregation to not be spent?

On the other hand, if the congregation voted to send $2000 to missionary ABC, then the money must be sent to them. What we need to determine is if the USAID funds were like the missions spending that must get where it was pledged to go, or if there are left over dollars that do not need to be spent. A 90 day pause to look into that seemed reasonable to me.

You can look into it without the 90 day pause.

While there are most likely things going on that shouldn't and money not being spent properly. A lot of the headline stuff from Elon has proved not to be true. Things like the Politico spend did not prove out to be the way Elon coined it "support of a liberal news site", but was instead professional subscriptions to detailed legislative data, energy pricing and other detailed items bought from services that have been acquired by Politico. Many were purchased by conservative members of Congress and such.

We need to avoid the hype and focus on the real waste.

Does anyone find the irony in Musk standing in the oval office, defying protocols, while the president sheepishly sits at his desk with his hand folded, an unelected bureaucrat lecturing the American public on the need to hold unelected bureaucrats accountable.

OK, granted, some things will look a lot more innocent than they appear now, sure, but for that which does not, it suggests that we need to look carefully at present auditing structures (like the work of IGs) and ask "why didn't they catch this?". Is it merely an issue of the fox guarding the henhouse, or what?

That noted, I have a significant reservation about the work of DOGE ("doggy"?); I am not quite sure I want my government to be "efficient" in all it does now. To draw a picture, the Nazis were pretty efficient, and that was part of the problem. My hope is that we will see that a lot of our government's functions are really not necessary.

Elon Musk is not the only one that leftists are upset with. Lee Zeldin the new EPA director just released the following statement:

One of my very top priorities at EPA is to be an excellent steward of your hard-earned tax dollars. There will be zero tolerance of any waste and abuse.

An extremely disturbing video circulated two months ago, featuring a Biden EPA political appointee, talking about how they were tossing gold bars off the Titantic. Rushing to get billions of your tax dollars out the door before inauguration day.

The "gold bars" were tax dollars, and tossing them off the Titantic meant the Biden administration knew they were wasting it. Following this revelation, during my meetings with members of Congress, I made a very important commitment to them and to the American people, which I reiterated at my confirmation hearing. That if confirmed, I would immediately get a full accounting. Fortunately, my awesome team at EPA has found the gold bars.

Shockingly, roughly 20 billion of your tax dollars were parked at an outside financial institution by the Biden EPA. This scheme was the first of its kind in EPA history, and it was purposely designed to obligate all of the money in a rush job with reduced oversight. Even further, this pot of 20 billion dollars was awarded to just eight entities that were then responsible for doling out your money to NGOs and others at their discretion with far less transparency. Just under 7 billion dollars was sent to one entity, called "The Climate United Fund."

You can watch Lee Zeldon speak further on this subject at:

Lee Zeldin on X: "🚨The Biden EPA tossed $20 billion of “gold bars off the Titanic”. BIG UPDATE! We found the gold bars and they are now being recovered for you, the hardworking American taxpayer. Here are more of the details: https://t.co/DM4C0TQcpj" / X

He went on raise the questions about who gets to decide how to spend this money.

We should all want answers to these questions, but leftists are convinced that they have the right to spend it no matter where it goes. I am thankful that we finally have a republican administration that is challenging that even it makes the leftists upset.