Thank you for giving a voice to those behind the spreadsheets who live and work to serve others. I pray for reinstatement of our global initiatives that serve to keep people alive. The next step would be to then help them thrive. It’s one thing to weed out “pork” and pushy ideologies but to throw out the baby with the bath water is inhumane. Aren’t we better than that? So, I agree with your plea 100 percent 💯.
This story is disturbing for so many reasons! Thank you for reporting the way you do, boots on the ground, sharing world news through the eyes of people in other places. I agree that cuts like these are short-sighted and we lose so much credibility and "soft power" as you call it.
At the end of the day I do not see how Joy’s plight nor the plight of the others you highlighted is my problem as an American tax payer. My dad can’t sell his business and retire, he can’t afford his rising healthcare costs and because of the increasing danger and political evil in my home state I cannot move home to help him. I’m inevitably going to watch from afar as his health falls apart and he dies far earlier than need be. Makes it kind of hard to care about some woman in Taiwan. I had a family member that spent years homeless because our healthcare system is so broken and there weren’t enough beds at the local mental health hospitals, it took him threatening police with a knife and jail to get him the help he needed. I’m supposed to care about people with AIDS on the other side of the world? My best friend just watched another friend lose her beautiful little girls because her husband was a mentally ill service member who was failed by the courts and the military and he killed their children. Yet I’m supposed to care about American soft power. I’m contemplating carrying Narcan in my diaper bag out of fear that one of my kids will pick up a piece of trash trying to “protect the Earth” like they’ve been taught and overdose on fentanyl.
It’s all well and good to say these things aren’t either or, that we can take care of our veterans and AIDs patients in Africa but that simply isn’t true. The only money the American government has is that stolen from the American taxpayer at gunpoint. Uncle Sam already gets 1/4 of my paycheck, which leaves my own family financially unstable and one major accident or illness away from losing it all. I literally cannot afford to support people on the other side of the world with my tax dollars.
Joy should absolutely be paid for the work she has already done. However there are 8 billion people on the planet, it doesn’t fall to the 300 million American tax payers to be saviors of the other 7+ billion.
And, by your own rules of conduct, why are we supposed to care about your father dying, or your friend having problems? It's "not our problem". Stop whining and expecting sympathy when you have zero to give.
You aren’t supposed to. I just want to keep my money to care for my friends, family, and community. That’s all I want, is for people to get to keep their money to spend it as they see fit. That way people who want to support journalists in Taiwan or AIDs victims in Africa can do so, and those of us who want our money to go to veterans and mental health services and caring for family can do so. I want the third world to stop depending on America for survival under the premise that it grants us soft power and is both a material benefit and moral imperative for American citizens.
Thank you for giving a voice to those behind the spreadsheets who live and work to serve others. I pray for reinstatement of our global initiatives that serve to keep people alive. The next step would be to then help them thrive. It’s one thing to weed out “pork” and pushy ideologies but to throw out the baby with the bath water is inhumane. Aren’t we better than that? So, I agree with your plea 100 percent 💯.
This story is disturbing for so many reasons! Thank you for reporting the way you do, boots on the ground, sharing world news through the eyes of people in other places. I agree that cuts like these are short-sighted and we lose so much credibility and "soft power" as you call it.
At the end of the day I do not see how Joy’s plight nor the plight of the others you highlighted is my problem as an American tax payer. My dad can’t sell his business and retire, he can’t afford his rising healthcare costs and because of the increasing danger and political evil in my home state I cannot move home to help him. I’m inevitably going to watch from afar as his health falls apart and he dies far earlier than need be. Makes it kind of hard to care about some woman in Taiwan. I had a family member that spent years homeless because our healthcare system is so broken and there weren’t enough beds at the local mental health hospitals, it took him threatening police with a knife and jail to get him the help he needed. I’m supposed to care about people with AIDS on the other side of the world? My best friend just watched another friend lose her beautiful little girls because her husband was a mentally ill service member who was failed by the courts and the military and he killed their children. Yet I’m supposed to care about American soft power. I’m contemplating carrying Narcan in my diaper bag out of fear that one of my kids will pick up a piece of trash trying to “protect the Earth” like they’ve been taught and overdose on fentanyl.
It’s all well and good to say these things aren’t either or, that we can take care of our veterans and AIDs patients in Africa but that simply isn’t true. The only money the American government has is that stolen from the American taxpayer at gunpoint. Uncle Sam already gets 1/4 of my paycheck, which leaves my own family financially unstable and one major accident or illness away from losing it all. I literally cannot afford to support people on the other side of the world with my tax dollars.
Joy should absolutely be paid for the work she has already done. However there are 8 billion people on the planet, it doesn’t fall to the 300 million American tax payers to be saviors of the other 7+ billion.
And, by your own rules of conduct, why are we supposed to care about your father dying, or your friend having problems? It's "not our problem". Stop whining and expecting sympathy when you have zero to give.
You aren’t supposed to. I just want to keep my money to care for my friends, family, and community. That’s all I want, is for people to get to keep their money to spend it as they see fit. That way people who want to support journalists in Taiwan or AIDs victims in Africa can do so, and those of us who want our money to go to veterans and mental health services and caring for family can do so. I want the third world to stop depending on America for survival under the premise that it grants us soft power and is both a material benefit and moral imperative for American citizens.