Ernst Calls on Senate to Make DOGE Cuts Permanent
First rescissions package returns $9 billion to the taxpayer.
WASHINGTON – After exposing sweeping abuses at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) spoke on the Senate floor to urge her colleagues to pass President Trump’s rescissions bill to save taxpayer dollars and make Washington squeal.
From funding fashion week to pickle makers, Ernst cited multiple wasteful USAID projects and taxpayer-subsidized partisan propaganda at National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) that she has uncovered.
After being stonewalled, Ernst has been leading the fight to combat waste at USAID and sent Secretary of State Marco Rubio a letter detailing her experience with the rogue agency as it misled, lied, and deceived the American people about how their tax dollars are spent. She has continued her work exposing jaw-dropping waste at USAID.
Last month, Ernst demanded transparency from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) over a $1.9 million grant it provided NPR last year.
Watch Senator Ernst’s full remarks here.
Ernst’s full remarks:
“And, our government agencies coordinating aid efforts should be eager to share details about how their use of taxpayer money makes the world a better place.
“Yet, over the past decade, USAID repeatedly rebuffed my requests for information, using intimidation and shell games to hide where money is going, how it’s being spent, and why.
“As a result of my oversight, I learned that the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, is a rogue bureaucracy, operating with little accountability and even, sometimes, at odds with our nation’s best interests.
“What warranted such secrecy and stonewalling?
“Here’s just some of USAID’s questionable spending that I uncovered:
“Money intended to alleviate economic distress in war-torn Ukraine was spent:
“Sending models and designers on junkets to New York City and Fashion Weeks in Paris and London, at a cost of more than $203,000;
“$148,000 went to a pickle maker;
“A dog collar manufacturer fetched $300,000; and
“A custom carpet manufacturer collected $2 million.
“Elsewhere, $20 million was awarded to Sesame Workshop, which produces Sesame Street, to create content for Iraq;
“$2 million went toward promoting tourism to Lebanon, a nation that our very own State Department warns against traveling to due to the risks of terrorism and kidnapping.
“Yes, folks, $2 million for tourism to Lebanon when we are saying, don’t travel there.
“$67,000 was spent to feed edible insects to children in Madagascar.
“Over $800,000 was sent to China’s notorious Wuhan Institute of Virology to collect coronaviruses.
“What exactly was our international development agency developing at China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology?
“Well, if the CIA, FBI, and other experts are correct that the COVID virus likely originated from a lab leak, USAID may have had a hand in a once-in-a-century pandemic that claimed the lives of millions.
“There’s no shortage of other questionable USAID projects, but President Trump is putting an end to this deep state operation.
“The foreign assistance programs that do advance American interests are now being administered under the watchful eye of Secretary Marco Rubio.
“This includes projects previously supported by USAID that were caring for orphans and people living with HIV.
“Imagine how much more good work like this could be done with the dollars that instead financed fashion shows, supported Sesame Street programs in Iraq, or ended up in China’s Wuhan Institute.
“Overseas projects without merit are being ended and the tax dollars that were paying for them will be refunded if the Senate passes the rescissions bill.
“It also cancels taxpayer subsidies to public broadcasting.
“Too often, these programs are partisan propaganda.
“You don’t have to take my word for it.
“A National Public Radio senior editor recently confessed ‘It’s true NPR has always had a liberal bent.’
“He admits the organization has ZERO Republicans in editorial positions.
“Come on folks, even CNN has Scott Jennings to roast the looney liberal lunatics on that failing network.
“NPR and PBS have a right to say whatever the heck they want, but they don’t have a right to force hardworking Americans to pay for their political propaganda being masked as a public service.
“Defunding this nonsense is causing a lot of squealing from the big spenders around here.
“Washington insiders are more upset at this effort to stop wasteful spending than at the misuse of taxpayer dollars.
“In fact, saving tax money is such a crazy concept in Washington that Democrats are threatening to shut down the entire government if this bill passes.
“It says a lot about the other side’s priorities when they’re willing to take hostage funding for veterans and senior citizens to prevent $9 billion in unnecessary waste, fraud, and abuse from being trimmed from our $7 trillion annual budget.
“The interest that we are paying on our debt alone is costing nearly $3 billion every single day.
“If we are ever going to get serious about our debt crisis, Congress needs to pass a rescissions bill like this every single week.
“Folks, the simple truth is if you can’t find waste in Washington, it’s because you simply are not looking.
“With our national debt now exceeding $37 trillion, the real question we should be asking isn’t ‘why is government spending now being scrutinized?,’ but rather, ‘why did it take so long?’”
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