Billions wasted in COVID relief.
Billions left in Afghanistan.
Billions wasted on the Inflation Reduction Act.
This is no surprise…
According to a report from The Washington Free Beacon, the Biden Administration is being less than forthcoming with details regarding hundreds of millions in potential waste by the U.S. Agency for International Development: luxury hotels, airfare, the works.
For those unfamiliar, a quick Wikipedia search will tell you that “The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance”
And a quick check-in with the Biden Administration will tell you they don’t know —or won’t say —what happened to the $15 billion dollars that was supposed to go to humanitarian projects abroad. In fact, Congress is accusing the Biden Administration of stonewalling them altogether.
“Indirect costs, which can include rent for a partner’s corporate headquarters, lobbying costs, and other miscellaneous expenses can easily exceed 25% of an organization’s total award,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX) wrote to USAID last week.
From The Free Beacon:
There is no way to know exactly how much USAID has wasted on these expenditures because the agency has been blocking a congressional investigation for more than a year, according to the lawmakers. Ernst and McCaul described the agency’s behavior as “troubling” and said the House Foreign Affairs Committee intends to discover if taxpayer funds are being “wasted on paying for awardee’s rent in Geneva or Rome or Paris.”
The foreign aid agency has a history of misallocating funds. An inspector general determined in 2019 that just 43 percent of the agency’s awards “achieved, on average, just half of their intended results.” USAID, whose budget President Joe Biden increased by 10 percent after taking office, also has a history of supporting organizations that work alongside terror groups and maintaining links to militant organizations like Hamas. The agency’s spotty oversight record has long been a source of concern on Capitol Hill, and with Republicans now in control of the House, Congressional investigators are ramping up efforts to hold USAID accountable.
And we hope they blast through Biden’s blockade because an agency that achieves intended results have the time, works with terrorist groups, and gets a raise anyway(!) should probably be overhauled if not completely defunded.
