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