USAID is Dead—Now It's Time to Bury the Zombie Agency for Good

"The time to strike is while the iron is hot. Congress, do your job—defund USAID permanently."

America's foreign aid slush fund is finally on life support, but Congress must finish the job and ensure that USAID is permanently dismantled.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio's announcement that 83% of USAID programs will be scrapped is a huge victory for taxpayers. This long-overdue move comes after a six-week review by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which revealed shocking waste and misuse of funds.

Rubio confirmed that over 5,200 contracts are being canceled, saving taxpayers "tens of billions of dollars" that had been funneled into programs that either failed to serve or actively harmed U.S. national interests. The remaining 17% of USAID operations—around 1,000 programs—will now be folded into the State Department. This shift, he explained, was coordinated with Congress to ensure diplomatic priorities remain intact while cutting off USAID’s bloated, unaccountable bureaucracy.

In his announcement, Rubio thanked DOGE and its hardworking staff for their role in exposing USAID’s waste. Musk echoed this sentiment, calling the review process "tough but necessary" and confirming that foreign aid should never have been detached from the core functions of the State Department in the first place.

Their findings underscore what conservatives have argued for decades: USAID was never about helping America; it was about using taxpayer money to fund left-wing nonprofits and globalist pet projects under the guise of "development assistance."

USAID’s Swamp Allies Are Fighting to Keep It Alive

Predictably, the Washington establishment is resisting these cuts. The Supreme Court was recently forced to step in, declining to halt a lower court’s ruling that the Trump administration must resume $2 billion in foreign aid payments tied to pre-existing USAID contracts. This ruling reveals the depth of bureaucratic entanglements preventing true reform. Even when a president wants to shut down wasteful agencies, entrenched interests will fight to keep the cash flowing.

Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) expressed concern about the USAID issue on X: “Rubio canceling woke grants is great but a legal question remains — can the administration simply not spend $ Congress gave to them? SCOTUS will ultimately decide but last week they initially upheld a lower court decision that is demanding $ be spent. The best way to incorporate DOGE cuts into overspending is for Congress to appropriate less $. Unfortunately, this week Congress will agree to continue spending at Biden levels — ugh.”

Congress has failed to act decisively. While Trump ordered an immediate pause on all foreign aid programs upon taking office, the previous GOP-controlled Congress did not go far enough in dismantling USAID.

Now, the newly elected Republican House has a chance to make history by doing what their predecessors failed to accomplish—completely defunding this obsolete agency.

Rep. Eli Crane introduced legislation in the last Congress to fully eliminate USAID funding, but only 102 lawmakers supported it.

That is unacceptable. If Republicans are serious about cutting government waste, USAID must go.

No More Excuses—A Government Shutdown is a Weapon, Not a Threat

Speaker Mike Johnson is now pushing a Continuing Resolution (CR) to extend government funding until March 14. While the CR does not explicitly fund USAID, it also fails to defund it, meaning it could still be financed through non-discretionary spending.

This is a classic example of Republican leadership surrendering preemptively to the media’s "shutdown" fearmongering.

The reality is that a government shutdown does not halt essential services—it merely pauses funding for non-essential functions. If USAID, an agency responsible for shipping billions overseas while Americans struggle with inflation and debt, isn’t "non-essential," then what is?

A temporary shutdown would be a small price to pay to ensure real spending cuts and force Congress to confront our $36 trillion debt crisis.

The Time for Half-Measures is Over

We are still in Trump’s first 100 days, and conservatives have a rare opportunity to enact lasting change. The American people gave him a mandate to drain the swamp.

That starts with killing USAID once-and-for-all. Congress should not merely rubber-stamp another stopgap spending bill—it should use this moment to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse from the federal budget.

With 83% of USAID already gone, there is no excuse for keeping the rest. The era of taxpayer-funded globalist schemes must end now.

The time to strike is while the iron is hot. Congress, do your job—defund USAID permanently.