I watch CBS Sunday morning every week. One segment on April 20 was Ted Koppel’s look at the cuts in USAID spending. There were three main things wrong with his reporting, all of which showed laziness or indifference or something else.
Koppel interviewed a British politician named David Miliband. Koppel stated:
For the past 12 years he’s [Miliband] been president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee. The IRC delivers humanitarian aid to some of the most vulnerable people in the world. So far, says Miliband, the cuts have affected about 40% of their international programs.
Then he showed heart-wrenching scenes about poor people in poor countries who will no longer get treatments for disease.
I wondered three things and Koppel didn’t try to answer them.
First, what percentage of the many billions of USAID spending went to this program? I’m guessing it’s a small percentage, but I’d like to know. Maybe we could cut the really bad stuff out of USAID and leave some of these programs that seem worthwhile.
The above is what I wonder as a numerate American independent of my political views.
Earlier in the segment was this:
And White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt provides the harmony, telling reporters on February 3, “I don’t know about you, but as an American taxpayer, I don’t want my dollars going towards this crap.”
Leavitt and Trump have a legitimate concern. That brings me to the second question I would have liked Koppel to ask.
The second question: How much corruption and waste is there in USAID?
My third question is one I would want answered because I think it’s wrong to forcibly take people’s money to help people in other countries, even if the money goes to good things, as some of it seems to do.
The question is this: Are there private organizations that take voluntary donations and use it for such programs? I would be shocked if there weren’t. I turned to my wife and said, “If there were such programs, and if they did a good job, I would donate a few hundred dollars.” That way, we could get the benefits of USAID without the corruption, without the waste, and without forcibly taking money from people.
If Koppel’s main concern had been those poor kids in Africa, he would have looked into this. Instead, it came off as another attempt to bash Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
Of course, I’m assuming that Koppel had agency. Maybe he didn’t. If so, then my criticism is of the producer(s) of the segment.
PS: One plausible candidate to give money to is the earlier mentioned International Rescue Committee. It looks promising. I’ll look into it. Why wouldn’t Koppel mention to that viewers as an option? It would have taken about 5 seconds.
PPS: I checked IRC’s Form 990 for 2021. It gives the compensation of some of the main people. David Miliband made a little over $1 million from IRC that year. He could be worth it. But it makes me nervous.
