A recent study published in the Lancet found that United States Agency for International Development programs have saved more than 90 million lives over the past two decades, particularly in Africa.Ashley Landis/The Associated Press
It was God who saved him. So said Donald Trump about the assassination attempt he survived at a Pennsylvania rally last July. “I felt then and believe even more so now that my life was saved for a reason,” Mr. Trump said on his Inauguration Day in January. “I was saved by God to make America great again.”
Applying this logic, one wonders how Mr. Trump would interpret America’s Independence Day tragedy. Biblical rains on the 4th of July flooded parts of Texas, including a Christian girls’ summer camp, killing more than 100 people as of Tuesday morning’s count. That number will rise, and the extent of the damage and death toll won’t be known for some time.
What else won’t be known for some time for certain is whether Mr. Trump’s government cuts contributed in any way to the catastrophic outcome.
Early Friday morning, while many were sleeping, torrents of rain caused the Guadalupe River in southeast Texas to rise nearly eight metres in 45 minutes. By the time the severity became clear to residents, it was too late for too many.
Early on, critics started asking: was this disaster made worse by cuts ordered by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), previously led by Elon Musk? Following a DOGE order, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the parent agency of the National Weather Service (NWS), lost nearly 600 employees earlier this year. NPR reported at the time that some fired employees had less than two hours to leave, and that staff managing the agency’s central weather forecasting models “scrambled in that time frame to transfer access to employees who remain[ed].” Other outlets reported that, as a result, many weather offices were left short-handed.
One official who left, taking early retirement, was the person who had been the “warning co-ordination meteorologist” at the NWS’s Austin/San Antonio office, Austin’s KXAN reported. In May, five former NWS directors published an open letter warning that proposed cuts of nearly 30 per cent to the fiscal 2026 NOAA budget would affect weather forecasting. The letter also stated that previous DOGE-related cuts had already left the NWS in a “significant deficit,” as the country heads into “the busiest time for severe storm predictions.”
“Our worst nightmare is that weather forecast offices will be so understaffed that there will be needless loss of life,” the letter stated in bold type.
The White House says the cuts did not have any impact on the disaster in Texas. A BBC fact check exploring this question stated that the cuts could have “theoretically” had a negative impact. “But – at this stage – we don’t have evidence to show if they contributed to the Texas tragedy.” The BBC also cited climate experts who said the NWS forecasts and flood warnings “were as adequate as could be expected.”
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Texas Lieutenant-Governor Dan Patrick acknowledged that lives could have been saved with flood-warning sirens. It was a measure previously considered by county officials, but rejected because of the high cost, The New York Times reported.
Was this a National Weather Service issue, a state issue, a county issue? A communication breakdown? Or just an off-the-charts freak weather event, impossible to properly predict, from which it was impossible to adequately protect? Determining accountability will take some time. Right now, there is an emergency to attend to.
But more deep budget cuts are on the way, and could have deadly consequences. Proposed future cuts to the NOAA issued in May include cancelling contracts for instruments designed “primarily for unnecessary climate measurements rather than weather observations” as well as climate research, data and grant programs not aligned with the Trump administration’s priorities. “For example,” the White House stated, “NOAA’s educational grant programs have consistently funded efforts to radicalize students against markets and spread environmental alarm.”
There is reason for alarm. When government officials cut jobs with gleeful contempt, using a chainsaw as a prop, it’s not just the suddenly unemployed Americans who are the victims. There are other victims, waiting. Maybe at a Christian girls’ sleepover camp in Mystic, Tex. Maybe at a refugee camp in Sudan.
A recent study published in the Lancet found that United States Agency for International Development programs have saved more than 90 million lives over the past two decades, particularly in Africa.
Using that data, the study makes a chilling prediction as a result of Mr. Trump’s slashing of USAID: “Our estimates show that, unless the abrupt funding cuts announced and implemented in the first half of 2025 are reversed, a staggering number of avoidable deaths could occur by 2030.” The study forecasts 14 million avoidable deaths, including 4.5 million children under age five.
For those who believe, one wonders: What would God have to say about that?