Yesterday I expressed thankfulness for my city. Now, I want to express that I’m always thankful to be a U.S. citizen. But this year, I’m preoccupied. I'm preoccupied with the poor folks across our country who have real financial needs, trying to make ends meet, while our government is throwing money around like there’s no tomorrow.
I’ve been surfing the Internet over the weekend, researching various things occurring during this lame-duck period. Despite what you may think, they’re still a lot of problematic goings on.
For example, the Department of Health and Human Services spent roughly $390,000 for a team of academics at Drexel University to perform quantitative interviews with 300 transgender men across Mumbai and Dheli, India's two largest cities.
What were the goals of this publicly funded research project? To inform the development and evaluation of an intervention to promote mental health for transgender people in India and to impact rapidly evolving transgender policies in India and beyond.
I’d like an explanation of what interest the United States has in India’s transgender community. And who thought it was a good idea to spend $400,000 on research for citizens of another country?
The researchers involved in this project were up in arms at the criticism. They argued their work is vital because the transgender community is facing many legal and social changes that may affect mental health…In India.
I just have no clue what public funding for gender affirmative care in a different country has to do with the betterment of the United States.
It doesn’t stop there. Another State Department grant provided financial support to a queer Muslim organization to give LGBTQIA people in South Asia a platform to write.
This has caught the attention of Elon Musk, who is heading up the agency for improving government efficiency and without a doubt has signaled interest in cutting programs like these.
We must get in the habit of asking these questions: What are we doing? How does this benefit the United States?
The list just goes on. The Biden administration, before Jan. 20th, is going to pick winners and losers of bailouts. Rivian, an EV company that’s in shambles will be awarded a $6.6 billion loan to Rivian. They need the loan because they’ve completely paused production as a result of an oversupply because there’s a lack of demand for their EVs. In other words, we’re rewarding corporations that are doing nothing to grow our economy or provide jobs to those who need them the most.
All of it makes me want to scratch my head and wonder, what are we doing? Why are being so reckless with our taxpayers' dollars? And why can’t we ever seem to get it right?
