RIP AID

RIP, USAID, 11/3/1961-6/30/2025. Sure, the U.S. Agency for International Development is sort of still around, via incorporation into the State Department. But with all due respect to them, there's a reason why the two have remained separate all this time, and the losses the world will endure from this gutting will be staggering. Unnecessary job terminations, the loss of our ability to spread democracy, diplomacy, and peace, and above all, the cuts to USAID could result in 14 million preventable deaths by 2030 (as the NPR interview below states.) Below is a photo from the 1962 orientation (the 1st or 2nd?), with my mom seated front left. She served in Guinea through 1964, and also worked in their DC office in much of the '70s and '80s. (I wrote about that here on 2/6/25.)

“Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.” That line from Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” pops up in my head countless times at least monthly; proof that not all earworms are useless; some are downright prescient. We won’t realize the losses of the hard work of these employees, and those of all the other useful organizations gutted by DOGE, for years. Similarly, the massive cuts from this month’s massive budget bill, which will lead to health care cuts for millions — not just Medicaid recipients but those who pay for health insurance and rely on Emergency Rooms and other amenities that hospitals provide — won’t really be felt until well after the next election or two. A more cynical analyst would speculate that this was cooked into the bill intentionally, so that the other party that will likely be in charge then (Democrats) would take the blame. So, call me a cynic.

https://www.npr.org/2025/07/01/nx-s1-5451372/usaid-officially-shuts-down-and-merges-remaining-operations-with-state-department