![Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at State Department / [Image by U.S. Department of State via Flickr, U.S. Government Work]](https://staticr1.blastingcdn.com/media/photogallery/2017/7/9/660x290/b_502x220x82/secretary-of-state-rex-tillerson-at-state-department-image-by-us-department-of-state-via-flickr-us-government-work_1434125.jpg "Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at State Department / [Image by U.S. Department of State via Flickr, U.S. Government Work]")
On Friday June 30, a government watchdog group called out the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development for doing a lousy job in tracking $30 billion dollars the agencies spend on foreign assistance. Since the beginning of the Trump presidency, the administration has made it clear -- through some influence from his Chief Strategist Steve Bannon, that they wanted to try and throw the government into as much dysfunction and chaos as possible while still trying to put in Trump's agenda.
Slacking on tracking foreign aid
The way Donald Trump has operated his presidency thus far is to make it so that all routes and decisions come to him as a form of restraint on the rest of his cabinet.
When the administration submitted their first budget proposal, they made no secret that they wanted to financially weaken as many programs as possible and funnel more money to increase military power. For the State Department, that meant that they would take away at least 30 percent from the department's humanitarian aid programs.
An office that is independent of the State Department, which is the Office of the Inspector General and is tasked with providing oversight of the Department's programs said that the Department had made little effort in trying to build up their ability to track data for foreign assistance. The inspector general also added that they had reissued recommendations from their original report made months ago where they made recommendations that required the executive leadership to act.
But as stated, there is no indication that the Trump administration will act on this at all.
Trump will likely neglect funding
Verification of this is with the Secretary Rex Tillerson's appearance at a hearing where he brought forward the budget proposal for which he was grilled and thoroughly criticized for. Lawmakers wondered if the world should just expect the United States to not follow through with aid when they need it.
Another lawmaker said that the budget he was bringing to them was a great waste of time.
Earlier in the month, the Deputy Secretary of State John Sullivan said that they would accept the inspector general's recommendations and begin implementing them but one wonders if President Trump will allow it.Certainly, without Congress approving the State Department's budget request, the Trump administration will do what it can to sabotage providing humanitarian aid and see what Congress or any agency do about it. At the very least, there are signs of some effort to follow through where a $1 million dollar plan was created with those recommendations but had yet to be implemented.
