Many Republicans are speaking out against President Donald Trump’s proposal to gut the budget of the State Department by 28 percent. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) is not one of them.
“I don’t have any concerns with the cuts to the State Department,” he told reporters Thursday. “As I understand it they had teams all over the world that were paid lavish amounts of money, and they weren’t promoting America, they were promoting the LGBT agenda. That’s not the State Department’s role.”
“I’m not sure 28 percent is enough to cut what’s not promoting the best interest of the United States,” he continued. “We went with teams into African countries and said, ‘We’ll help you with Boko Haram if you change your law to allow same sex marriage and abortion.'”
The State Department has just one special envoy in charge of promoting LGBT rights, a position that President Obama created and President Trump so far has retained even as other staff has been purged. Contrary to Gohmert’s characterization, the office is not engaged in promoting same sex marriage, but in “building capacity to respond swiftly to violence against LGBTI persons” around the world.
The LGBT rights program has only dispersed $20 million to groups in more than 50 countries between its creation in 2011 and 2015, according to State Department documents submitted to Congress. Private sector partners including the Hilton hotel chain have contributed additional funding. Another $4.2 million from USAID went to fund local NGOs working for LGBT rights in Bangladesh, Cameroon, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Rwanda, Serbia, and Zambia.
The State Department did not immediately respond to TPM’s inquiry as to the total budget of the Special Envoy’s office and the number of staff employed there.
Since President Trump is proposing to cut $15 billion dollars from the State Department, the cuts would hit far more programs than solely the LGBT rights work Gohmert opposes. Also on the chopping block are the Global Climate Change Initiative, the Green Climate Fund, funding for UN peacekeeping forces, Emergency Refugee and Migration Assistance, the East-West Center, and a host of other initiatives. The budget also calls for cutting $650 million from the World Bank over three years, and converting the security aid we currently offer many countries into loans that they would have to repay.
Gohmert’s colleagues in the Senate have been far more critical of the proposed gutting of the State Department’s budget, telling reporters that the plan is “dead on arrival” because it “makes us less safe, puts our diplomats at risk and destroys soft power.”
In a statement Thursday, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) announced he will fight against the State Department cuts. “In order to advance our national security interests, economic opportunity for our people and respect for human dignity everywhere, America’s leadership on the global stage is indispensable,” he said.
Other House Republicans, however, sang the praises of the president’s budget.
“We really like the general trend,” Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) told reporters Thursday. “You know, we’re conservatives. We think you should pump up the defense budget and offset it with reductions to discretionary spending. That’s exactly what we should do.”
