“No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size,” said Ronald Reagan. “Government programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we’ll ever see on this earth!”

Donald Trump and Elon Musk today are trying to prove Reagan’s adage wrong. They are moving to dismantle and defund the foreign aid bureaucracy of the U.S. Agency for International Development and its many contractors and grant recipients. (RELATED: The Spectacle Ep. 188: Why America Needs to Defund USAID)
Lasting success for this mission requires more than eliminating spending and jobs within USAID and its Beltway Bandit “implementing partners.” It also calls for defunding federal and state government support for sinecures held by former USAID bosses and their hangers-on — including many Republicans-in-name-only. (RELATED: Trump Should Shutter USAID — Development Economics Is a Hotbed for Corruption)
Besides the profits and jobs given to aid contractors, there is a large network providing foreign aid grifters with cushy think-tank posts, light-duty academic positions, and appointments to government boards — in other words, the sort of handsomely compensated dolce far niente gigs made infamous by Cambridge University’s Russia hoax “Walrus,” Stefan Halper.
Money is fungible. Institutions that receive any federal or state taxpayer funding should not provide sinecures to foreign aid establishment figures, either Democrats or RINOs.
As examples, here are a few profiles of senior USAID presidential appointees in past Republican administrations who have dwelt on Easy Street for long careers, most of them never having worked a day in a for-profit private enterprise.
Andrew Natsios
Making the rounds of every establishment media outlet these days from Politico to the Atlantic and all of the mainstream TV networks is Andrew Natsios, a pompous, liberal Republican of the variety that only Massachusetts can spawn. He was the head of the sprawling USAID bu...