13-02-2025
- Politics
- Wall Street Journal
A Better Use for $40 Billion
Your Feb. 5 editorial 'Hurricane Musk and the USAID Panic' details the woke and inadvertently terror-supporting projects of the United States Agency for International Development.
Yet you might have noted the opportunity cost. The latest Arleigh Burke-class destroyers cost $2.5 billion each. You report that USAID managed $40 billion in 2023, enough to buy 16 more destroyers. Considering that the USS Arleigh Burke, the oldest ship in the class, is now 35 years old, if the USAID budget-to-destroyer price ratio has held constant, then 35 years of USAID has cost us 560 destroyers.
