We Feed the Bombs but Starve the Children

The Senate’s Rescission Vote and America’s Moral Collapse

This week, the Senate faces a choice that should not even be a question: whether to make permanent the GOP’s rescission of roughly $8.3 billion in foreign humanitarian aid and public media funding.

If passed, this rescission will lock in devastating cuts to food aid, vaccines, and global health programs, cuts that are already killing people every day. It would also silence trusted public media voices here at home, stripping rural families of education and vital information.

Let’s be clear, this is not an abstract budget fight. This is a moral decision with life-or-death consequences.

Since the House passed this bill and froze the funds, the damage has already begun: aid deliveries have stopped mid-shipment, clinics have shuttered, and medicine has expired in warehouses. Already, thousands of lives have been lost, with many more at risk.

Now, with this vote, the Senate will decide whether to make those deaths permanent policy.

Are we really prepared to enshrine this cruelty into law? Do we want to be the country that debates whether feeding children is “worth it”?

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The Damage Already Done by DOGE

To understand how we arrived at this point, it is necessary to examine what has already taken place and what may come next.

In January, Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) began gutting the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) in the name of cutting “waste.”

They fired thousands of staff, shuttered programs, left warehouses of food and medicine to rot, and silenced the very system America built to save lives.

In just six months, the consequences have been catastrophic.

• Since January, approximately 341,700 people have died, including more than 230,000 children, due to the collapse of U.S.-backed humanitarian aid.

• That’s nearly 1,900 deaths every day. One every minute.

• And those numbers are climbing fast.

Then, in June, the House passed a rescission bill that froze what little humanitarian funding remained, halting food shipments, shuttering more clinics, and accelerating the death toll.

See our reporting on the House rescission bill here:

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Defund the Facts: How Trump’s $9B Rescission Targets America’s Public Voice and Global Reach

Now, the Senate will decide whether to make that freeze permanent by clawing back the already-appropriated funds and codifying these cuts into law.

So the timeline is clear:

• January: DOGE slashes USAID → immediate collapse of programs → hundreds of thousands dead.

• June: House freezes this year’s funds → even more lives lost.

• Next week: Senate vote could make that devastation permanent.

One aid worker put it bluntly: “We’re turning away mothers with sick children because we’ve run out of medicine. We have food in warehouses that we can’t ship because the funding is frozen. People are dying in front of us.”

A doctor in Syria explained, “We tell them there’s nothing left. No vaccines, no supplies. Just wait and pray.”

A program manager in Africa added: “It’s heartbreaking. We can save these children — the solution is right here. But politics won’t let us.”

This is the reality the Senate is debating this week. This is the damage already done, and the harm they could still choose to enshrine into law.

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Bombs vs Bread: Why This Isn’t Just a Budget Debate

We are told that the rescission is about “fiscal responsibility,” about cutting waste, about making tough choices.
However, let’s examine what those choices actually entail.

This year alone, the U.S. has already approved billions upon billions in military spending for other nations, and barely blinked.

That includes:

• Over $66.9 billion in military support to Ukraine since 2022.

• Over $4 billion in additional arms for Israel this year.

• Annual military aid to Egypt and Israel, which continues to flow, totals more than $4.6 billion.

• The U.S. spends more on its military than the next 10 nations combined.

And yet, we’re now debating whether we can “afford” to feed children and vaccinate mothers?

One aircraft carrier — a single Ford-class ship — costs over $13 billion. That is more than the entire global food aid budget the GOP is trying to claw back. And don’t forget that the One Big Beautiful Bill increased military funding even further at the expense of social safety nets, and the Pentagon still cannot pass an audit.

See our reporting here on the Pentagon’s bloated budget and creative accounting here:

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The Pentagon’s Blank Check, and the People Paying the Price

One carrier or 341,700 lives? That’s the real choice on the table.

We already have 11 aircraft carriers, more than the next 13 navies combined, but we’re letting nearly 2,000 people die every day because “there’s no money” for food and medicine?

We all support defending Ukraine. We support defending our allies. But if we truly care about global stability and preventing future wars, then we cannot continue pretending that bombs are more important than bread, that guns do more good than vaccines.

Because here is the truth: Hungry, desperate people are easier for extremists and authoritarians to recruit. Starvation, disease, and abandonment breed instability and conflict, and then we spend even more on bombs to clean up the mess we helped create.

We can send billions in bombs without question, but food and vaccines require justification? That’s not just hypocrisy. That’s stupidity.

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Ceding the Field: China and the Price of Abandonment

When America walks away, the world does not simply wait.
Others step in.

In the wake of the DOGE cuts and the House rescission freeze, nations that once relied on U.S. aid have already begun turning to others — particularly China — for help.

In Liberia, where USAID once funded HIV and maternal health clinics, families now look to China for both healthcare and infrastructure support. In Cambodia, China has begun funding child healthcare, nutrition, sanitation, and even landmine clearance programs that the U.S. used to champion.

One Liberian health worker put it bluntly: “America stopped coming. China didn’t.”

We cannot continue wringing our hands over China’s influence while actively pushing the world into their arms.

We are not just ceding lives. We are ceding the field — morally, strategically, and diplomatically — to powers that do not share our values.

We broke the trust. They picked up the pieces.

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What Democrats Should Do Now

Democrats cannot allow this vote to pass quietly.

Here is what they should do right now:

• Stop the Rescission Without Compromise

  Human lives are not negotiable.
  No more hostage-taking. No more cruelty by increments.

• Claim the Moral High Ground

  Speak clearly and emotionally:

  “We already spend more on our military than the next ten nations combined, and now we’re debating whether we can afford to feed starving children?”

• Show the Faces, Tell the Stories

• Bring the people affected into the Capitol — aid workers, rural families, parents. Make their stories impossible to ignore.

• Unite and Repeat

  Flood the media and social platforms with a simple, unified message: “Stop the cuts. Save lives. Stand for what’s right.”

• Expose the GOP’s Hypocrisy and Cowardice

  Remind voters that the GOP has failed to govern on its own, even with a trifecta, and now wants Democrats to bail them out of their own dysfunction.

• Refuse to Be Bullied: Let the GOP Own Their Threats

  Senator Thune and others have already threatened to tie this rescission to future must-pass spending bills, effectively holding the government hostage. Democrats must not flinch. If they sabotage their own legislative majority, that is their failure, not ours.

We fight it, and we let them own it.

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Who Have We Become?

I grew up in the era of Live Aid, when Americans gathered around televisions to watch the world feed the hungry in Ethiopia.

We believed it mattered. We believed those lives were worth saving. We believed we were the kind of people who showed up.

And now?

Now we are the ones debating whether feeding the hungry is “wasteful.” We’re the ones freezing aid while children die by the minute. Now we’re the ones arguing over whether bread and vaccines are “worth it”, while shoveling billions into bombs and aircraft carriers we don’t even need.

When feeding the starving and healing the sick requires a political justification, then we have already lost something vital, not just as a nation, but as human beings.

The world remembers those who show up, and they also remember those who abandon them.

If we can no longer see the value in saving lives, if we can’t recognize ourselves in the faces of those we abandon, then we are not the country we claim to be, not the beacon, not the light, not the leader—just another shadow in the dark.

It’s not too late to choose differently, but that choice won’t wait.

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What You Can Do

As early as next week, the Senate will decide whether America chooses to feed the hungry or abandon them. You don’t have to stand by silently.

Call the Congressional Switchboard

U.S. Capitol Switchboard: (202) 224-3121

Sample Script:

Hello, my name is [Your Name], and I’m a constituent. I’m calling to demand that Senator [Name] vote NO on the rescission of humanitarian aid and public media funding. Cutting food, medicine, and trusted information while people are dying is unconscionable. Do not compromise. Do not negotiate over lives. I will be watching how the Senator votes. Thank you.

Support the Watchdogs and Grassroots

• CARE (care.org)

• Save the Children (savethechildren.org)

• Doctors Without Borders (doctorswithoutborders.org)

• Better World Campaign (betterworldcampaign.org)

• Public media watchdogs in your area

Show Up Peacefully

Join rallies, organize demonstrations, and make your presence and your principles visible.

Remember at the Midterms

Write down the names of those who voted for cruelty and hold them accountable at the ballot box.

The world remembers who showed up and who abandoned them. Make sure your name is on the right side of that memory.

Bibliography:

• “House of Representatives Passes Bill That Would Eliminate $9.4 B in USAID and Public Media Funding.” NAPCO Network, June 12, 2025.

• “Here’s How Much Aid the United States Has Sent Ukraine.” Council on Foreign Relations. Accessed July 2025.

• “U.S. Foreign Aid Freeze & Dissolution of USAID: Timeline of Events.” Kaiser Family Foundation, July 9, 2025.

• “United States Agency for International Development.” Wikipedia, July 2025.

• Pamuk, Humeyra & Daphne Psaledakis. 2025. “US Issues Broad Freeze on Foreign Aid After Trump Orders Review.” Reuters, January 24, 2025. https://www.reuters.com/article/foreign-aid-freeze/idUSKBN2YQ0VJ

• “'We're Headed for Disaster': America’s Foreign Aid Cuts Expected to Devastate Global Health.” Politico, February 27, 2025.

• “Trump on Jan. 20 Ordered … Funding Freeze Has Stopped Thousands of U.S.-Funded Programs Abroad.” AP News, February 26, 2025.

• “In Sudan, where children clung to life, doctors say USAID cuts have been fatal.” The Washington Post, June 29, 2025.

• “Children die after USAID funding cuts end lifeline for displaced communities fleeing violence.” PBS News, May 16, 2025.

• “Defense Budget Debate Spotlights Republican Divide on Ukraine.” Air & Space Forces Magazine, June 11, 2025.

• “As US Abruptly Ends Support, Liberia Faces Empty Health Clinics.” AP News, July 8, 2025.