Source: TomDispatch
by Arnold Isaacs
“What put the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), with an annual budget hovering at just about 1% of federal spending, at the top of Elon Musk’s budget-cutting target list? Was it just a political calculation that foreign aid is a safe target because it’s unpopular with so many Americans and cutting those funds will only hurt foreigners, not U.S. voters? Or was Musk motivated by some other grudge we haven’t even heard about? … one of Musk’s principal influencers on this issue appears to have been a man named Mike Benz, who served in the Department of Housing and Urban Development and briefly in the State Department during President Trump’s first term.” (04/06/25)