There is a lot going on in Washington DC and phone lines in Congressional offices have been swamped with calls from citizens across the country, expressing concern to their elected representatives. I contacted Representative Pete Stauber’s office three times in the past week and a half. I would love an opportunity to interview him for the Journal. So far, I have only gotten a basic form email that is typical when one contacts a government office holder. That being said, I did receive Stauber’s monthly newsletter and I feel compelled to call him out for his cursory treatment of recent DOGE activity. A verbatim excerpt from his newsletter follows:
“DOGE is Working”
“This week, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) announced it had discovered that FEMA had sent $59 million last week to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal immigrants. This money was funding the Roosevelt Hotel, which served as a meeting ground for Tren de Aragua and was used to house Laken Riley’s killer.
This is an egregious abuse of taxpayer money that was intended for American disaster relief. Luckily, because DOGE had uncovered this abuse, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was able to claw back these funds that activists within FEMA unilaterally gave to hotels holding illegal immigrants.
And last week, we learned about the egregious amount of abuse going on within USAID. Under the appearance of ‘foreign aid’, USAID has largely been used as a front for the far-left agenda. Here are a few examples of the USAID abuse that’s been uncovered:
$20 million for a new Sesame Street show in Iraq.
$6 million for tourism in Egypt.
$25 million for Deloitte to promote ‘green transportation’ in the country of Georgia.
$7.9 million to teach Sri Lanken journalists how to avoid ‘binary gendered language.”
And this is just the tip of the iceberg.
We have heard a lot of hysteria from some of my colleagues on the left because they know the grift is over. DOGE is going to be looking at all agencies, and I welcome this because the American taxpayer deserves to know that their money is being spent wisely. That’s why I recently joined the DOGE Caucus in the House.”
The problem with Representative Stauber’s assertions here is that they are either misleading or false. He is either deliberately being disingenuous or he is woefully ill informed.
Officials from New York City have indicated that they received $19 million from the federal government as repayment for hotel expenses the city incurred while providing services to migrants who arrived in New York seeking asylum. The $59 million figure comes from an Elon Musk post on X, claiming, without evidence, that $59 million “meant for American disaster relief” was sent to “luxury hotels.” In its heyday, the Roosevelt Hotel was, indeed, a luxury hotel. It closed in 2010 and the space has since been used as temporary housing for asylum seekers.
The $20 million for a “new Sesame Street show in Iraq” was not used to create a new program, but to support an existing Iraqi children’s TV show called “Ahlan Simsim”. The program was designed to promote inclusion, mutual respect and understanding across ethnic, religious and sectarian divides and was culturally tailored to help heal the emotional wounds from years of war that have left Iraqi kids struggling for a sense of safety and stability. Are those efforts really part of a “far left agenda”?
The $6 million “for tourism in Egypt” actually refers to a bilateral assistance agreement signed in 2021 under Trump. The agreement did not go to support tourism but rather sought to increase educational opportunities and strengthen livelihoods of the people of North Sinai. The funding helped provide access to transportation for rural communities so that people had the means to earn incomes and support themselves.
The $25 million “to promote green transportation in the country of Georgia” did come from USAID and was a targeted loan to be invested in green energy efficiency, construct renewable energy sources, and invest in measures to improve resilience to climate change.
Regarding the $7.9 million “to teach Sri Lankin journalists how to avoid binary gendered language”. This was part of a program called Media Empowerment for a Democratic Sri Lanka and was implemented by the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX). IREX is a nonprofit organization that specializes in global education and development. Funding for the program did come from USAID, but most of the funding went toward investigative journalism training, web development grants for publications, digital literacy training, and grants to upgrade newsrooms. The project ended last year.
USAID is directly connected to American efforts toward diplomacy around the world and those efforts exist to promote economic opportunity and freedom for people who live in developing nations. Like the Marshall Plan implemented after WWII, this kind of diplomacy and financial aid is designed to promote stability and peace by helping, for example, little kids in Iraq heal from the trauma of war and by helping them learn to accept cultural, religious and ethnic differences so that they can grow to build a functioning, civil society. Stauber likens these measures to “a leftist plot”. In reality, supporting stability in a country that was engulfed in warfare from 2003 to 2011 is in our national security interest.
Like the Marshall Plan, USAID has a track record of helping to promote the ideals of a democratic society while restoring economic infrastructure in places impoverished by war and political corruption. The U.S spent 1.17% of the federal budget on foreign aid in 2023. Compare that to the $4 to $6 trillion we spent on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and ask yourself which one is a better investment?
To be fair, Pete Stauber is not the only Republican to parrot Elon Musk’s misleading assertions about waste and fraud. Republican Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and others are all singing from the same hymnal. If you’ve watched any recent White House press briefings, you will recognize that the use of these kinds of talking points are what passes for “transparency” in DC. I’m not surprised that Stauber hasn’t gotten back to me regarding an interview, but It’s really disappointing to know that the Representative from Minnesota’s 7th District would obfuscate facts in a newsletter to his constituents by using unsubstantiated talking points from an ethically compromised billionaire.
Do your own research. The following is a short list of sources.
- The Washington Post: Lawmakers flooded with calls about Elon Musk
- The Washingtonian: DC-Area Congressional Offices Say They’re Getting Flooded With Phone Calls About Trump.
- ABC News: Here are all the agencies that Elon Musk and DOGE have been trying to dismantle.
- Fact Checking.org: Musk Misleads on FEMA’s Migrant-Related Payments to New York City
- New York Times: Fact-Checking Claims About USAID Funding
- Interfax: EBRD provides Georgia’s TBC Bank with a $25million loan.
- The Sunday Times: MEND programme did much more than merely train journalists
- The Pew Research Center: What the data says about US foreign aid
- The Harvard Kennedy School: The Financial Legacy of Iraq and Afghanistan:
