At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing before the Congressional recess, Rep. Brian Mast (R-FL) charged that foreign assistance programs are harmful to aid-receiving nations.
00:00to examine the progress made regarding the reorganization of the Department of State
00:04and the role that the Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources is
00:10in ensuring effective management of resources and operations within the department
00:14and the role of this position relative to the Undersecretary for Foreign Assistance
00:19and the Undersecretary for Management.
00:21I'm now going to recognize myself for an opening statement.
00:25I think it's been very clear that Secretary Rubio is leading, sweeping overhaul
00:32to give us a State Department that is efficient and accountable,
00:37which is something that it has not been.
00:39A State Department where every single dollar that goes through that agency,
00:44it puts this country, it puts our country, it puts the United States of America first above all else.
00:52Foreign aid is not benevolence.
00:57It's not charity.
00:59It's a soft power that gives America a chance to get what it is that we need
01:05because of some mutual benefit that exists out there between two nations.
01:10It's not an opportunity to push radical liberal ideas on countries
01:15that would otherwise want to be our allies.
01:18As chairman of this committee, I've called out this madness for a number of years.
01:24Foreign aid programs with zero benefit to America
01:28or even to the countries that they're supposedly helping.
01:34America, in many cases, would have been better off burning that money
01:37than spending it in the ways that it had previously.
01:41In the year 2000, the State Department's budget was $9.5 billion.
01:47Under Joe Biden, it was over $55 billion.
01:51And I don't think that we could say our foreign policy was $45 billion more effective in those years.
01:59This past Friday, 1,300 State Department personnel were laid off.
02:03But guess what?
02:05Between 2007 and 2024, 23,000 new State Department employees had been added.
02:15More than the number of agents that Border Patrol is mandated to have by Congress.
02:20That, to me, is an astounding number.
02:23America did not get the return that it needed on that investment.
02:26I could give you a number of examples that we looked at in the Oversight Subcommittee
02:31and on this committee over the years.
02:33But I'm going to give you just one right now.
02:36The disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan
02:38left 13 U.S. service members dead at Abbey Gate.
02:44It left people literally hanging off the wings of military aircraft.
02:48Left an overrun embassy in billions of dollars.
02:53Left behind along with millions of dollars of condoms.
02:56Left to the Taliban.
02:58Those were real things.
03:00Many colleagues in here, they tried to defend that record.
03:05The same people who said Afghanistan was a glowing success.
03:10That that withdrawal was, everything was perfect and flawless
03:13and nothing could have been done better.
03:15The same people that said that are now begging us
03:18not to fix the broken machine that let that happen.
03:23That's not diplomacy.
03:24That's delusion.
03:25They'll call President Trump's effort to eliminate
03:291,300 duplicative State Department roles
03:31self-sabotage and a gift to our adversaries.
03:35What they call self-sabotage, we call accountability
03:38for the real sabotage of those who led the Afghanistan withdrawal
03:43and the funding of transgender job fairs and LGBTQ musicals and DEI operas and drag show tutorials.
03:53Our State Department should not be more concerned with promoting DEI and giving handouts to foreign NGOs
04:00than defending the interests of the American people.
04:04That is changing.
04:05That is changing.
04:06Under Secretary Rubio, that is changing.
04:10This isn't disarmament.
04:11This isn't disarmament.
04:11It's a strategic realignment.
04:13America needs a focused and a mission-driven State Department where every dollar and every diplomat puts the United States of America first.
04:25A State Department that can answer, not only answer, but actually takes the time to ask the questions what does America actually need from a country or a region?
04:38What do we need? What do we need from them? What does that country or region actually want from the United States of America?
04:46And does what we provide get us what we need? Or does it not?
04:52Because if the State Department can't answer those questions, then it is not meeting the moment.
04:58We need a State Department that isn't afraid of removing career bureaucrats who think they're above oversight.
05:03Many of these so-called experts oversaw two decades of failure from botched regime change to a rising China and wasteful foreign aid.
05:11That's not expertise. That is inertia.
05:14Congress should not be using taxpayer money to fund permanent jobs programs for globalist insiders, in my opinion.
05:20We should be funding a State Department that serves Americans.
05:23That means being able to explain why one dollar should go from a person's pocket to somebody who is in another country.
05:33Somebody who is not even an American. Why should that take place? They better be able to explain that.
05:39If that rattles the career bureaucrats at Foggy Bottom, then good.
05:44They need to remember who it is exactly that they work for.
05:49Secretary Rubio is not hollowing out the State Department. He is rebuilding it to win.
05:54This is about fixing a broken system.
05:57Real reform makes the State Department stronger, not weaker.
06:00Today's witness, Deputy Secretary Michael Regas, is helping lead that charge.
06:07With a background in discipline, resource management, and no-nonsense approach to results,
06:13he's the right man to guide the next generation of State Department leadership.
06:17Mr. Regas, thank you for being here.
06:19The American people are counting on you to make sure that our diplomats serve one interest and one interest only.
Be the first to comment