Staff Reports
Elon Musk has certainly stirred the pot this week with his suggestion to shut down the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), but it seems the Democrats are not too keen on letting this billionaire play kingmaker in Washington. Representative Gerry Connolly of Virginia, joined by fellow Democrats, made it abundantly clear that a mere whim from Musk won’t change a 1961 law that established USAID. It’s astounding how politicians love to cling to the past—after all, they’ve been holding onto policies and laws that haven’t worked for decades without breaking a sweat.
Musk, the man of the hour, is no stranger to bold claims. Earlier, he threw out the notion that USAID, with its staggering $40 billion budget, was “beyond repair.” This chatter was met with quite the spectacle. While Musk talks about taking a wrecking ball to waste, House and Senate Democrats gathered outside USAID headquarters looking like they’d just seen a ghost. Their melodrama was palpable as they accused Musk of corruption and neglect and argued that it was a recipe for disaster for countless people across the globe. If it was a fanfare, it was more like a funeral procession for fiscal responsibility.
While Musk heads the new Department of Government Efficiency, aiming to root out a whopping $1 trillion in wasteful government spending, his detractors focused on USAID as their target of disdain, failing to acknowledge the sheer irony. After all, it’s not like the Pentagon’s budget is filled with perfectly budgeted pennies and dimes. Critics pointed fingers at Musk, claiming he’s turning a blind eye to that behemoth while trying to dismantle USAID. The hypocrisy was thick enough to cut, considering that cutting government waste is precisely the kind of bold action they could use more of.
Democrats dismiss Elon Musk-led push to shut down USAID as ‘plainly illegal’https://t.co/QeJhlT1Pje pic.twitter.com/LspuFcHwpE
— The Washington Times (@WashTimes) February 4, 2025
Senator Chris Van Hollen’s thunderous diatribe painted Musk as a modern-day dictator—never mind the fact that he can’t even get half of the electric vehicle battery companies to obey. Van Hollen’s impassioned speech may have been better received if it weren’t for the palpable irony of a politician demanding sanctity in governmental agencies while ignoring all the excess fat elsewhere. Maybe if they focused on efficiency instead of gatekeeping, they wouldn’t need a billionaire tech mogul to come in with a broom and dustpan.
Meanwhile, the USAID workforce found themselves in quite the pickle, receiving notice that their own headquarters was closed, driving home the point that government inefficiency is rarely met with a competent response. While Democrats decry Musk’s audacity to suggest an overhaul, many taxpayers might just be on his side if it means getting rid of a costly dinosaur of bureaucracy. Perhaps it’s time for some new, innovative thinking instead of more of the same age-old whining. At the very least, the clash between a billionaire and a cadre of politicians raises questions about who truly knows the value of a dollar—and who can’t quite handle the heat of being called out on it.
