said<\/a> on Wednesday that nearly 500 tonnes of high-energy biscuits intended to feed 27,000 starving children in Afghanistan and Pakistan would soon be incinerated due to the Trump administration\u2019s decision to shut down USAID.<\/p>\n\u2018A bunch of junk\u2019<\/p>\n
Democrats argued that weakening foreign aid efforts would diminish the US\u2019s global status and leave a vacuum that would be filled by rivals like China.<\/p>\n
Senator Brian Schatz said cutting food aid and disease prevention measures was having life-and-death consequences, AP reported.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are dying right now, not in spite of us but because of us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican, told the AFP news agency that while he was a \u201cbig fan\u201d of foreign aid and the soft power it brought, he believed money was being wasted.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you start spending money on a bunch of junk and liberal programmes disconnected from the purpose of the aid package, it makes it difficult on a guy like me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Republican leaders had removed a $400m cut to an HIV prevention programme from the package after requests from its own lawmakers. The programme is credited with saving millions of lives.<\/p>\n
US Constitution\u2019s ideals \u2018undermined\u2019<\/p>\n
The cuts to public broadcasting, which Republicans have accused of having a left-wing bias, also met with fierce objections. Democrats said they would remove a key public service that performs a vital role, particularly during emergencies like natural disasters.<\/p>\n
The package cancels $1.1bn that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was due to receive over the next two years. It would help fund National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) as well as more than 1,500 local radio and television stations.<\/p>\n
Democrats said the rescissions package, by cutting $9bn from a $6.8 trillion federal budget, would do little to meaningfully tackle the deficit but would harm important public institutions.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is yet another example of the spirit and ideals of our constitution being undermined in a terrible way,\u201d New Jersey Senator Cory Booker told AFP.<\/p>\n
Others, including Senator Mitch McConnell, the former Republican Senate leader, expressed concerns about ceding congressional spending powers to the president, saying he was worried about handing the White House a \u201cblank cheque\u201d on spending issues, AP reported. But he ultimately voted to approve the package.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The package, passed in a 51-48 vote, takes back $8bn in already approved foreign aid spending. United States…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":269334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[32,12,49,978,286,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-269333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-us-canada","13":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114868656957087932","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=269333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/269333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/269334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=269333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=269333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=269333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}