USAID is officially dead

July 1 marked the death of USAID. Gone is the United States's use of soft power to help the people of the world. China is taking our place.

Gone are clinics and hospitals around the world that provided disaster relief, life saving food and medical care to millions of babies and families while already paid for food and medicine wastes away in storage areas in the U.S. and world ports for lack of funds to distribute.

Gone is the first line of defense against diseases of diarrhea, AIDS, malaria, measles, polio, tuberculosis, Ebola, and bird flu; not providing diagnosis, treatment and prevention. No more monitoring and stopping the spread of diseases.

We can spend billions to the for-profit prisons to confine thousands without due process, but not to care for our elderly, handicapped and young.

It only took six months and USAID is gone, approved since 1961 by many presidents, legislatures, American taxpayers, and nonprofits that used the 1% of our national budget to help millions.

If the current budget is approved with slashes to Medicare and Medicaid, our rural hospitals, clinics and nursing homes will close; our hungry and sick children's silent cries will join the world's children's silent cries.

As we treat the world, so we treat ourselves.

Charlene Lange

Iowa City