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Floor Speech

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Mr. WELCH. Mr. President, I want to speak about what Elon Musk is doing to destroy the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Here is what is happening. Mr. Musk--of course an unelected billionaire who knows really nothing and cares less about how the Federal Government works--is demolishing one of the most important Agencies we have for countering Russia, China authoritarianism, and anti-American extremism around the world, all being done in the name of ``efficiency.''

One former State Department official said:

Disbanding U.S. aid is the strategic equivalent of scuttling the Navy.

Mr. Musk bragged about feeding USAID into a wood chipper. What he is really doing, after locking USAID's staff out of their offices and blocking their access to email, is destroying the careers of thousands of professionals who administer programs that are critical to U.S. national security, not to mention the well-being of their families.

I want to acknowledge something. Many Americans ask me and they ask the Presiding Officer, why should we send aid to other countries when we have so many problems here at home? And we do have problems at home, so that is a legitimate question. In my view, we haven't done enough in Congress to solve our own problems--the cost of food, housing, healthcare, or dealing with drug addiction, gun violence, homelessness, the challenges facing our farmers and small businesses, and the devastation to communities from wildfires, flooding, droughts, and other national disasters.

Both parties have an obligation to address these issues, and our citizens do come first, but we also have a role in the world that is absolutely vital to our own national security.

There is a sense--magnified by a lot of the misinformation Mr. Musk and others put out--that foreign aid is this huge component of our budget really compromising our ability to meet those needs that affect all of our citizens here in the country. People think it is like 25 or 30 percent of the budget. Foreign aid is less than 1 percent of our budget. So as a percentage, it is really quite modest. Incidentally, not that we necessarily want to compare, but as a per capita spending portion of our budget, what we spend in the United States on foreign aid is a lot less than our European allies and Japan. So it is modest but significant.

But even at this less than 1 percent, the foreign aid budget is very important to America, and it serves our national interest. Why is that? Our USAID program started 64 years ago under then-President John F. Kennedy.

He asked the question:

Is a foreign aid program really necessary?

His answer:

The answer is that there is no escaping our obligations: our moral obligations as a wise leader and good neighbor in the interdependent community of free nations . . . and our political obligations as the single largest counter to the adversaries of freedom.

There were adversaries then, and there are adversaries today.

President Kennedy went on to say:

To fail to meet those obligations now would be disastrous and, in the long run, more expensive. For widespread poverty and chaos lead to a collapse of existing political and social structures which would inevitably invite the advance of totalitarianism into every weak and unstable area. Thus our own security would be endangered and our own prosperity imperiled. A program of assistance to the underdeveloped nations must continue because the nation's interest--

That is, our Nation's interest-- and the cause of political freedom require it.

The words of John F. Kennedy.

But fast-forward. Only 5 months ago, George Bush's Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice said about the need for continued U.S. engagement in the world:

[T]he United States has got to make both a statement and a reality of America's willingness to remain engaged in the world, because great powers don't mind their own business. And if we don't shape the international environment, then others will. And they are others that we do not want to cede the territory for our values and our interests, powers like China and powers like Russia.

The words of former Secretary Condoleezza Rice.

So the question that we need to answer today is not why we spend money on foreign aid. I don't believe we need to answer that because I think President Kennedy and Secretary Rice explained that very well. The question is, How can we make the best use of the 1 percent of the Federal budget to protect our interests in an increasingly unstable and dangerous world?

As Secretary Rice said, ``if we don't shape the international environment, then others will''--because no matter how many times President Trump and Elon Musk say ``America first, isolationism,'' this is a decision that each one of us in the U.S. Senate must make. Isolationism is not an option. What does happen in Central America, in Africa, in the Middle East, in Asia does threaten our own security, far more so today than in President Kennedy's time.

Our Secretary of State, Marco Rubio--a valued former colleague, someone we are all quite proud of--has said this administration is not going to eliminate foreign aid and that many of USAID's programs will continue. He and others in the administration have called what the administration is doing a ``review.''

Let's talk about that a minute. If this were a review, I would be all for it. We should always be looking at the best way and the best use of taxpayer dollars to get the best outcomes from the programs we fund. I have been calling for a review of FEMA, an organization that was very helpful to Vermont to recover from the floods of 2023 and 2024. In my view, we should be doing a review of every Agency--from food stamps to the Pentagon. So if it were a review, I would be all in favor of it. But it is not a review. It is a frontal assault to destroy USAID.

Just consider: Emails go out telling people not to go to work. Emails go out telling people in foreign lands they have got to come home. Websites are closed down. Work is stopped in its tracks. That is not a review. That is a decision. It is an action to dismantle and destroy an organization. By the end of the so-called 90-day review, people in Africa working for USAID will be in the United States. There won't be anything left.

And the administration really makes no secret about it. It acknowledged that it has decided to reduce the number of USAID staff from 14,000 to a few hundred. That is not a review; it is a decision.

Many of us know a lot about USAID. Bring on reform, yes. But this organization has helped our country by doing good work in other countries. Many of us have met USAID staff at posts overseas, often in some of the world's most dangerous places. The folks in that organization are serious, purposeful, and patriots. They put their lives at risk every day, and they don't have body armor.

If the goal really is reform of USAID, then I say to Secretary of State Rubio and I say to my Republican colleagues: I want to work with you. Anything we can do to make any program that we are responsible for better, I am absolutely all in. And we know there are ways we could make USAID better.

But what Elon Musk is doing is dangerous. It is cruel, and it is illegal. It is illegal because this Congress has appropriated money for these programs, and Elon Musk is making a unilateral decision, without any congressional oversight or authority, to discontinue those authorized programs.

Also, you know, what does it really say to the millions of people and governments around the world, when we have made a commitment, whether it is one that you agreed with or I did--but as a body, as a country, we made a commitment. And then, suddenly, there is an email out saying: We are just kidding. We are not going to follow through.

And what does it mean, when you think about it--that because of, in effect, this stop-work order, we have food for hungry people that is not being delivered? We have vaccines, medicines that can save lives, avert injury, and they are not being delivered. Why are we doing that? Why would anyone do that? It would be like your neighbor's house is on fire, you have a hose, and you won't let them use it. That is not the way we operate--at least, I hope so.

And, you know, the USAID work is invisible to most people. It shouldn't be invisible to us. We are supporting civil society leaders who are inspired by our own Declaration of Independence. These folks fight for human rights and democracy, and they do that in the face of corrupt and abusive governments that imprison their political opponents. These programs have been stopped. There are programs that have strong bipartisan support and have had it for decades. And I want to acknowledge many of my Republican colleagues who have done so much-- in particular, Senator Lindsey Graham, who knows this does protect our national security, and they present the best face of America that the rest of the world sees.

You know, the administration talks about waste, fraud, and abuse. And when they talk about that, I ask myself the question: Is there a single American any of us can identify that is in favor of waste, fraud, and abuse?

So they raise the question without proof of where that waste, fraud, and abuse is found. And instead of looking to identify it specifically so they can actually take action to eliminate it, they just leave it out there as an explanation to justify shutting down a valuable program and not doing the hard work of reform.

That is applying not just as an approach, not just to USAID, but to many other programs, like farm programs, where I am getting calls from farmers: What happened to the agreement I had with the Federal Government, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, about doing a new type of crop rotation in exchange for getting a contract price?

What has happened to folks running domestic violence shelters who can't get on the portal to get money paid to them that they are owed?

This is happening throughout our non-profit systems, including at our community health centers. We had a woman who had an appointment with a dentist at a community health center and got a notice that it was closed because of the order that went out from the administration.

So I believe in USAID. I believe it is wrong for the administration to essentially make the decision to feed it to the wood chipper. I believe in reform, but I do not believe that this is a serious effort at reform. It is a serious effort to destroy the program started by President Kennedy that has been embraced by Republican and Democratic Presidents since President Kennedy started it 64 years ago.

And while there is a perception that it is 25 to 30 percent of our budget, it is 1 percent. And it is at a time when the reputation of the United States as a country that is going to stand behind the commitment it has made is being jeopardized.

So my hope is that all of us, whether we agree or disagree about the ultimate value of USAID, will stand up for protecting what we have already committed ourselves to, and that to the extent there is reform to be made, we work together on that so that the American taxpayer and American national security interests can continue to be served by the men and women of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Mr. President, I conclude my remarks on USAID.

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