Why Is Biden sending millions to teach gender studies in Iraq?
Jack Elbaum
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The list of ridiculous things supported by our taxpayer money seems to be never-ending. In the past few years alone, the government spent $1.7 billion to maintain empty federal buildings, $2.3 million on a study injecting puppies with cocaine, $1 billion for “racial justice” in farming, and $140 million in COVID-19 relief funds to construct an 800-room luxury hotel.
Now you can add $12 million for teaching gender studies in Iraq, along with lessons on how to fight climate change, to that list. No, I’m not kidding.
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Over the weekend, The Washington Free Beacon reported that the State Department posted a grant solicitation on its website last month “offering three universities in Iraq up to $4 million each to develop programs to help fight climate change and advance gender equity.” In total, up to $12 million will be going towards this grant.
These are your tax dollars hard at work.
Seriously, the U.S. is now sitting at $31.8 trillion worth of debt, a debt-to-GDP ratio that is above 130%, and a projected $1.5 trillion deficit in 2023. The fact that those in the federal government seem to genuinely believe that we have money to spend on bizarre projects like this is puzzling, to say the least. Of course, this $12 million is not what is driving the debt; however, it is indicative of a general attitude toward spending that is thoroughly disconnected from reality. This attitude is what leads politicians to feel perfectly comfortable spending like a drunken sailor year after year.
Politicians have a responsibility to internalize the fact they are spending other peoples’ money every time they vote to fund something. It is not their own money, and therefore they do not get to be careless with it.
But, beyond the fiscal effect of the program, which is admittedly not earth-shattering, there is also the question of what the point of a grant like this is in the first place. Is the goal to export American culture to the Middle East? If so, what indications do we have that this is even possible? After all, in many ways, Middle Eastern culture is so foundationally different from American culture that the two are like water and oil. They simply don’t mix, and one will not change the other. Further, it is not even obvious that the U.S. has any interest in funding gender studies in our own country, let alone abroad.
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As such, we can see that this grant is both wasteful and pointless. Or, maybe more precisely, it is wasteful because it is pointless.
Either way, if you know about a university in Iraq eager to teach gender studies and climate change reduction techniques, be sure it gets its applications in before June 15 for the opportunity to receive up to $4 million in sweet American taxpayer money. Time is running out!
Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.