The Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) say they have saved the American taxpayer $65 billion (2.17%) from a $3 trillion budget. While some cuts can be justified for rooting out waste fraud and abuse, the employee firings and funding cuts to the National Institute of Health (NIH), Center for Disease Control (CDC) and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), have over the last 110-days resulted in the deaths of approximately 300,000 people, most of whom are children.

In particular, the funding cuts to USAID have forced the closure of health clinics throughout Africa preventing vulnerable populations from receiving lifesaving treatments for diseases ranging from tuberculosis, HIV, malaria, and for food assistance.

For example: Half of all the food assistance for treating malnutrition and 70% of the HIV treatment centers in Africa were funded through USAID. As a consequence of funding cuts to that agency, over the next 10 years, approximately 6.3 million people will likely die.

If the deaths of the world’s most vulnerable don’t concern you, consider the fact that the lifesaving treatments that you have, or will receive, were developed by the NIH, CDC and through federal research grants to America’s universities — including Harvard and Columbia. And as a consequence of the Trump administration’s recent funding cuts, the blockbuster cures and treatments of the future that you or your family would benefit from are now on indefinite hold.

Folks, it’s not just the poor blacks from Africa’s “sh** hole countries” — as Donald Trump likes to describe them — who will die, but it will also be you or someone close to you who will suffer.

One last point: The Medicare, Medicaid, food and housing assistance that many of you desperately rely on: yes they are also on the chopping block in the GOP’s latest budget and billionaire tax cuts bill. Pay attention!

“Make America Great Again.” What BS!

FREDERICK LEHR

Grays River, Washington