Restore America’s tradition of being a force for good
For over 75 years, Presidents, Congresses, and Americans of both parties have understood that our values are not the myopic values of misers.
In his 1961 inauguration, President Kennedy pledged that America would do more for the world.
“To those…struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required--not because the communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.”
And we did. We founded the Peace Corps and joined our many foreign assistance programs together as the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). For decades after, we dedicated a tiny fraction of our federal budget, just 0.6%, to making the world a better place. Where there was famine, we brought food. Where natural disasters struck, we brought relief. Where wars and disease came, so did our doctors and our medicines.
While it was hardly the only factor, our contributions have helped transform the world for the better: in 1960, 54% of the world’s population survived on the equivalent of less than $5 per day. Fewer than 15% do now. Global literacy rose from around 40% to around 90%. Two of polio’s three strains and smallpox were eradicated. Americans have been able to take pride in being the greatest source of good in the history of the planet while spending just one dollar in a thousand on aid. And incidentally, America became well-admired abroad.
But that was the past 74 years. Today we have a new Elon Musk-Donald Trump regime with new priorities, and those do not include the greater good.
USAID has been abruptly and illegally closed. As a result, billions of dollars’ worth of US-grown food rots in warehouses. Life-saving medications expire unused. Clinics are shuttered. Famine spreads. AIDS and polio bloom. Tens of thousands of people are dead. As many as 3.3 million will die within a year.
So rather than do what is right, we will waste and watch as people die.
Which makes us wonder: if not the greater good, what does this Republican regime value?
As former President Biden said, “Don't tell me what you value. Show me your budget--and I'll tell you what you value.”
It can’t be the science and research that have kept America at the forefront of innovation for decades; the regime has tried to cut the funding that underpins the U.S. scientific research system. It can’t be the land that once made up America’s frontier; it has cut national park staffing and opened the parks to logging. It can’t be America’s veterans; the regime has cut VA staffing and vets’ crisis hotlines. It can’t be arts and culture; the regime has slashed funding for the NEH, libraries, and museums. It doesn’t even value the military or avoiding war; it has cut the Wilson Center, Institute for Peace, and the Department of Defense. It isn’t even Americans’ basic needs; it has eliminated programs that keep Americans from freezing in their own homes and children from going hungry.
With all of these cuts, it must be debt and deficits, right? Wrong. America’s deficits do not exist because of what we spend, but because we stopped collecting taxes on the wealthy and large corporations. Of our $35 trillion debt, $10 trillion is attributable to President Reagan’s tax cuts and $10 trillion more to those of Presidents G.W. Bush and Trump. All of these cuts have benefited the rich over the rest, and Trump’s proposed IRS cuts and new budget will further benefit the rent-seeking class.
For over 75 years, Presidents, Congresses, and Americans of both parties have understood that our values are not the myopic values of misers. Rent-seekers Musk and Trump are betraying American values, American interests, and American traditions. Don’t let them get away with it: contact your Senators and Representatives and tell them to reinstate America’s programs.
Kelcey Patrick-Ferree and Shannon Patrick live in Iowa.
Originally published in the Des Moines Register on April 9, 2025.