Why the fuss about disbanding USAID and firing other federal employees, without notice or reason? The reason is not only fairness, but the fact that hard-working civil servants save taxpayers more than they cost.
Employees of the US government are not widely appreciated for their work, in part because much of the work they do is not well known. Yes, they prevent terrorism both in the US and overseas. They also provide emergency care, food safety, criminal investigations, child support, workplace and transportation safety, and temporary assistance for needy families. They develop science and technology. They also promote US exports through both the Commerce and Agriculture departments.
An example is that Federal employees facilitated our $175 billion in agricultural exports in 2023. My husband spent his career facilitating agricultural trade as an officer with USDA’s Foreign Agriculture Service, working in the US, Mexico, Costa Rica, and New Zealand. The mission of the Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) hasn’t changed since David’s retirement. In 2023 FAS organized US food pavilions and exhibits at 25 international trade shows in 15 countries, enabling 820 US companies and organizations to show their products to buyers around the world. The bottom line? These shows alone resulted in $1.5 billion dollars in US agricultural sales. Organizing these types of shows is a small portion of the work of FAS, a small agency, but one essential to American farmers, ranchers, and many agricultural businesses.
Government programs also greatly increase our safety by bringing us international prestige and gratitude. Why are so many people horrified by the current disbanding of USAID, as well as by attacks on the FBI, CIA, and other departments? To many Christians like me it is terrible to know that “soup kitchens can no longer feed the hungry. First responders are unable to reach the dead and wounded. Mothers and fathers search in vain for the medicines that keep them alive,” as reported on Feb. 4th in the Washington Post (“Fear, pain, and hunger: The dire impact of U.S. funding cuts in Africa”).
Americans in general are also horrified because dropping these programs so suddenly destabilizes volatile and poor areas of the world, and leaves a hole that Russia, China, and ISIS are delighted to fill with their influence. Also, billions of USAID food aid is bought from American farmers, whose promised sales of rice, soybeans, wheat and more are now threatened. The AIDS program created by George W. Bush, PEPFAR, has saved the lives of 25 million people. Now where will AIDS victims who are poor turn?
And dropping USAID and the food and health grants they distribute is a direct attack on Evangelical and Catholic Relief organizations, groups that fought for years to get equal access to USAID funding. Why have these American Christian groups always worked so hard to help the poorest of the poor? Because we are told to feed the hungry and help the poor almost 2,000 times in the Bible.
For Christians like me, helping the poor is not a choice but basic to our way of life. And so many Americans are Christians that it is no surprise that as a nation we have funded foreign aid through USAID, the world’s single biggest donor, providing food, health care, and clean water for tens of millions of people. Now, in Sudan alone, a humanitarian worker states that their stop-work order for grants covering hundreds of millions of dollars will mean “over 8 million people in extreme levels of hunger could die of starvation.”
As a country we could move from being deeply respected for feeding so many, to being hated for leaving them to starve, in a matter of weeks. This is terrible for those we abandon, and it is terrible for our farmers and our national security, as well as for our souls.
Please write to your representatives now.
Pastor Judy Young
Judy Young is a retired United Methodist pastor. She convenes Gettysburg for
Gun Sense and the Adams County branch of the PA Prison Society, and is a
member of the Green Gettysburg Book Club.
Thank you Pastor Judy – As a retired federal employee and United Methodist I’m appalled at the arbitrary and capricious happenings to federal programs and the employees. Reason and clear decision marking due to facts should be used to accomplish the President’s goals not getting the low hanging fruit. Thank you for the excellent description of USAID’s work aided by the little known but important of the feds.
Thank you Pastor Young for your excellent letter and factual explanation of one of the many travesties facing our country through improper governance and grabs for power. A country that has so much has an obligation to help other countries as well as our own with aid for those who are ill, impoverished, homeless, and without medical care. Plans to cut government spending need to be carefully planned and implemented with thought and consideration rather than dramatic closing of government offices, illegal incursions into the government funding offices, and bullying to force government workers to resign with dubious and yet… Read more »
Wonderful explanation of the Federal Worker. It was an eye opener for me; expecially about the American farmer who sells his crops to the government.
Such an important message to share with our community. The unilateral actions by President Trump and Elon Musk to disband a congressionally authorized and funded agency like USAID is very likely illegal. I’m heartened to see that a temporary restraining order has been issued by a Court to suspend the layoffs of government employees without cause or due process. We need to stand together against this abuse. Thanks to Judy Young for walking the walk of a Christian for a humanitarian cause.
Thanks for this excellent letter, Judy! I hope you send it to the Gettysburg Times, too. But wait till Monday or Tuesday to send it so it will be printed and not put in the Monday digital version.