I wouldn't go as far as saying that it's "all bad," but it's pretty clear that USAID was going well beyond the scope of its mission statement to "promote and demonstrate democratic values abroad, and advance a free, peaceful, and prosperous world." Spending tens of billions of dollars on military weaponry/supplies for war is not really a promotion of peace and prosperity. It's just the newest way in which we've engaged in policing the world and warmongering rather than focusing on our own common defense.
But that's beside the point, because the central question to me isn't whether or not budgetary items are "good or bad" based on their intent. A more relevant question is whether we should be spending our taxpayer dollars on foreign issues in the first place, when many of those countries are not our allies, when we have so many unresolved issues for our own citizens.
Just because we can doesn't mean we should. First of all, there's no limiting principle whatsoever on our current approach to foreign spending. Secondly, there's absolutely no evaluation of whether or not the money we're handing out is EFFECTIVE at addressing whatever issue is being targeted. Thirdly, we almost always place no conditions whatsoever on the aid, which means that once it's out of our hands, we have no control over the use of it, and we gain very little to nothing from it most of the time. This has led to many abuses of our generosity from foreign governments, many of whom act like entitled trust fund kids in response to our efforts. And lastly, we have chosen to meddle in affairs that should be a global effort, and we do this so we can engage in militaristic and economic abuses of other countries on a global scale. We definitely should have a role, but this assumption that the USA should "take a lead" on global efforts rather than engaging in equal collaborative efforts with every other country around the world is self-defeatin
