February 26, 2025
Trump's assault on USAID is more than an exposure of its alignment with far left narratives. It raises the question: How far will he go in dealing with its perceived waste and abuse?
It looks like he won't be satisfied with merely slashing jobs and the agency's budget. Republican Representatives Chip Roy and Majorie Taylor Greene have already introduced legislation to permanently abolish USAID. And what about this proposed legislation would make it permanent, should it become law?
Absolutely nothing.
Government has been at odds with its Constitution since the establishment of the First Bank of the United States in 1791. In a letter to President Washington Thomas Jefferson said the Twelfth Amendment should be the final word on the issue of a national bank, that "to take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition." Twenty years later Congress failed to renew its charter but only by the tie-breaking vote of VP George Clinton. President Madison reluctantly signed the bill authorizing the creation of The Second Bank of the United States in 1816, President Jackson fought to prevent renewing its charter in 1836, but the final blow came in 1913 when President Wilson signed the Federal Reserve into law, and monetary recklessness proceeded uninterrupted, often with favor.
If the central bank's history is a bellwether, and it's one of countless examples, nothing exists to prevent USAID II being passed by some future administration.
Changing governments
The Second Continental Congress announced its creation of the United States of America on July 4, 1776 with John Dunlap's publication of the Declaration of Independence. Earlier that year, a 50-page pamphlet became a bestseller, arguing for American independence from England in bold language most literate Americans could understand, thus creating a groundswell of support and pressuring Congress to do what it had been fearful to do before then.
Thomas Paine, in writing the incendiary Common Sense, presented a rich treatise on government, how England came to be ruled, and how the American colonies suffered from it. Estimates vary as to the number of copies sold, but Constitution Center claims "An estimated 20 percent of colonists owned a copy of the revolutionary booklet," which in current-day figures would amount to sales of 60 million, not including overseas sales. Not bad for someone who quit school at age 13.
Even John Adams, who hated Paine, decades later admitted "I know not whether any man in the world has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last thirty years than Tom Paine," concluding, referring to the Revolutionary era, "Call it then the Age of Paine."
In Common Sense, Paine's thoughts on government preceded any commentary about the English government in particular or his reasons for American separation. In the introduction he writes [from Philip S. Foner, Complete Writings],"Society in every state is a blessing, but government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries by a government, which we might expect in a country without government, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer."
Two points stand out immediately: (1) That government is a necessary evil, and (2) that in its worse state is like "a country without government."
Certainly, most people would agree to at least part of (1), that government of some kind is necessary. As for a country without government, it all depends on how people understand and value property rights. As Robert Murphy writes in Chaos Theory,
The path taken by North Korean market anarchists will no doubt differ from the course of similarly minded individuals in the United States. In the former, violent overthrow of unjust regimes may occur, while in the latter, a gradual and orderly erosion of the State is a wonderful possibility. The one thing all such revolutions would share is a commitment by the overwhelming majority to a total respect of property rights. [Emphasis Murphy's]
In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson included the idea that when government is destructive of our inalienable rights the people should act to form a new government which to them "shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
Comforting, but what if all known governments are found wanting? And what if the current government threatens to kill you if you try?
Notwithstanding Trump's efforts, government is and always has been our enemy masked as our savior. Every bit of its revenue is obtained through force, either by direct theft (taxes) or sleight of hand (monetary inflation). Theft should be punishable, yet it's the essence of government. Because of government's power over money there's almost nothing it can't get away with, including nuclear war.
One of the most telling features of our overlords is the recent fate of the US penny. Trump has called on the Treasury to stop the minting of pennies because it cost too much to make them. What? As a popular meme states, with Ben Bernanke's proud face peering out at us: What's less valuable than a penny today? That same penny tomorrow.
The USAID corruption is a consequence of the coercive form of government that we and almost every other society has suffered under.
People didn't vote for it, politicians did. If Trump cans it, some other administration could bring it back, perhaps worse the second time, as the history of the central bank shows us.
Market forces would provide a far better way to govern, including defending ourselves from foreign states - and preventing such corruptions as USAID and an ignominy like expensive pennies. More about that in a future article.