At least bother to come up with some reason they should be cut. But you can't even seem to put that into words.
At least bother to come up with some reason they should be cut. But you can't even seem to put that into words.
Apparently "not a serious person" is the new insult of choice with you guys, huh. What a ridiculous reply.
Of course they should be cut. The slogan of the winning party for the last decade was America First. They ran on that platform. Broadcasting and teaching on a different continent isn't putting America First. There's your reason.
The insistence on not understanding obvious stuff is such a tiresome attribute.
You think advertising doesn't work?
$191k/year to promote American interests in Ethiopia may or may not be value for money to the American taxpayer (I honestly don't care because I'm not one), but to think it can't be value for money is to claim that the primary business model of half the American tech giants — and also the business model of X.com, which isn't a giant but is the property of DOGE's most famous figure-head — is fake.
It sells (advertises) the USA's preferences to Ethiopia. Preferences such as "do not interfere with shipping things up the Red Sea or we'll do to you what we did to the Houthis in Yemen". Or preferences like "open your markets to what our businesses want to sell to you". Or, historically, "human rights are in everyone's best interest, you should do more of that because it will make you rich and then you can afford more of our stuff".
Stuff like that.
But to repeat: As I neither know nor care about the national interests of the USA in Ethiopia, I do not say this should or should not be funded — all I say is that this kind of thing *must be considered when deciding if it is or isn't good value, you cannot possibly know a priori just from the title alone*.
I’m only arguing that there are complex reasons why some of these programs exist and it requires experience and perspective to uncover that and make informed decisions.