In what seems to be an increasing trend with this Administration of using non-official communication platforms, Secretary of State Marco Rubio took to Substack to release his official statement on his proposed overhaul of the State Department.
He does know that the State Department has its own website that he could post to, right?
Anyway, contained within the Substack blog post, Secretary Rubio laid out how the State Department’s size and cost had “ballooned” in the past 15 years.
Really?
The State Department’s website proudly says, “With just 0.5 percent of the entire Federal budget, the State Department has an outsized impact on Americans’ lives at home and abroad.”
USAspending, the official open data source of federal spending information, shows that on average, the State Department’s budget has grown on average by about 3% per year. The Department ranks 16th in terms of overall percentage of the Budget – far below the Treasury (44.06%), Health and Human Services (18.23%), and Defense (9.69%), which combined account for over 70% of the Federal Budget.
Not exactly ballooning out of control.
The Department lists its mission as, “To protect and promote US security, prosperity, and democratic values and shape an international environment in which all Americans can thrive.”
A mission most people likely would agree with.
So then, why cut from an already relatively small department aiming to do good work for Americans and the larger international environment?
Because of politics.
As reported by the BBC, the administration believes that the “US government is beholden to radically liberal civil servants who stifle their conservative agenda, a position vehemently rejected by critics who have condemned the cuts”.
Rubio himself stated in his blog post, “The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor became a platform for left-wing activists to wage vendettas against ‘anti-woke’ leaders in nations such as Poland, Hungary, and Brazil, and to transform their hatred of Israel into concrete policies such as arms embargoes,”
He went on to write, “The Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to international organizations and NGOs that facilitated mass migration around the world, including the invasion on our southern border.”
Ultimately, he stated that the department overhaul will close several overseas missions and reduce staff. The Administration proposes a significant reform involving axing a war crimes office and shifting the staff’s focus to looking at migration and refugees.
However, how much research is the Administration doing into what they are cutting?
In the White House’s Week 13 Wins: President Trump’s Relentless Pursuit of Prosperity, Opportunity article, they listed one of its ‘wins’ as:
“The Department of State canceled 139 grants worth $214 million, including wasteful programs like ‘Building the Migrant Domestic Worker-Led Movement’ in Lebanon or ‘Get the Trolls Out!’ in the United Kingdom.”
Did they look at what these organizations do?
Get the Trolls Out states that its purpose is to “strive for a world where people from Jewish, Muslim, Christian and other faith backgrounds can live free from hate, discrimination and being ‘othered’ in the media, on social media and in their daily lives.”
Hmm, that sounds like a program that Trump’s base would actually support.
Ultimately, while cutting under the guise of rooting out radically liberal civil servants, the Administration is politicizing the Department of State more than ever.