{"id":38041,"date":"2025-02-03T22:36:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T04:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=38041"},"modified":"2025-02-03T22:02:37","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T04:02:37","slug":"republican-blocks-senate-resolution-in-support-of-usaid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=38041","title":{"rendered":"Republican blocks Senate resolution in support of USAID"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sen. Jim Risch\u2002<\/u><\/a>(R-Idaho) blocked a resolution in the Senate that supported the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as the agency undergoes turmoil via the Trump administration<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Democratic Sen. Chris Coons\u2002<\/u><\/a>(Del.) asked unanimous consent that the Senate agree to a resolution that affirmed USAID\u2019s role in protecting the United States\u2019 national security. Coons has more than 40 Democrats backing him on the bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Risch, the chair of the Senate\u2019s Foreign Relations Committee, objected to the measure and noted hard choices must be made to reduce the national debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe idea of merging USAID and the State Department has been floated by nearly every administration since USAID was established by Congress in 1998,\u201d Risch said on the Senate floor. \u201cI\u2019m supportive of the Trump Administration\u2019s efforts to reform and restructure the agency in a way that better serves U.S. national security interests.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Risch said he was supportive of Secretary of State Marco Rubio\u2019s\u2002<\/u><\/a>plan to integrate the agency<\/u><\/a> under the State Department and said he plans to work alongside him in consultation during the process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response, Coons highlighted the importance of the agency for the nation\u2019s global standing and the aid it provides to various communities internationally. He also highlighted a point he and other lawmakers have presented over the last several days, which is that Congress has already appropriated funds for USAID, and it is now President Trump\u2019s\u2002<\/u><\/a>role to carry out that function.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why should we bother coming to an agreement on appropriations here in the Senate, pass a law, send it to the president, he signs it, and then in the next Congress and the next president, they can shut it down and claw it back?\u201d Coons questioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The battle comes as officials from Elon Musk\u2019s\u2002<\/u><\/a>\u201cDepartment of Government Efficiency\u201d (DOGE) have essentially shut down USAID. Several lawmakers have sounded the alarm<\/u><\/a> about Musk\u2019s influence over the federal government in the last several days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coons said he is hopeful that there would be a bipartisan agreement on continuing to support USAID investment. Still, it\u2019s unclear if that would happen because \u201cthe unelected leader of DOGE,\u201d Musk, has called for the agency<\/u><\/a> to be shuttered entirely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy hope is that Secretary Rubio\u2019s comments today on television about sustaining many of the critical functions of aid will win out, but I\u2019m not confidence because it\u2019s unclear to me who\u2019s really driving this initiative,\u201d Coons concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

thehill<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sen. Jim Risch\u2002(R-Idaho) blocked a resolution in the Senate that supported the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as the agency undergoes turmoil via the Trump administration. Democratic Sen. Chris Coons\u2002(Del.) asked unanimous consent that the Senate agree to a resolution that affirmed USAID\u2019s role in protecting the United States\u2019 national security. Coons has more than 40 Democrats […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":38042,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[4860,21064,5282,2066,32206],"class_list":["post-38041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-block","tag-republican","tag-resolution","tag-senate","tag-usaid"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38043,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38041\/revisions\/38043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/38042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}