During consideration of the fiscal 2025 State Department and foreign operations appropriations bill (H.R. 8771), Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) offered an amendment to prohibit funds in the bill from being used for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), completely defunding it. In fiscal 2023, USAID’s budget was more than $50 billion. The agency is primarily responsible for sending billions of taxpayer dollars to foreign governments each year in the form of foreign civilian aid, development assistance, and myriad other relief programs.
The House rejected Greene’s amendment on June 27, 2024 by a vote of 81 to 331 (Roll Call 308). We have assigned pluses to the yeas because USAID is an unconstitutional agency. Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution neither grants Congress the power to send financial aid to foreign countries nor empowers the president to do so.
