

A right-wing MAGA influencer called the “direct file” tax program a "far left /…/
Here in Estonia, the castle of “far left” in Europe (shh, don’t spoil the joke, comrades, we want them to think we’re dark red here ;) )…
…for something like 15 years already, you file your taxes like this:
- some day in February, your internet bank reminds you to send a report to the tax office
- you click “send”
- some day in February, you read in a newspaper that “you can file your taxes now”
- you open up emta.ee, log in with your ID card, and see a pre-filled declaration
- if you’re lucky (99% are), it’s been filled correctly and you click “confirm”, otherwise you click “edit”
- you get to see if you have returns or need to pay extra
- if you have returns, you can choose if you want the money (typically if it’s big, you do) or want to donate the small change to a non-profit
It typically takes about 15 minutes.
If it’s a bad year and the automatically filled declaration was incorrect, things will differ of course - then you wait until next winter for a court to resolve the dispute. If you can write a complaint in legalese, it costs about 20 €, but if you need a lawyer, you shell out real money. I’ve had a bad year once. Most people never have one.
An article about where - statistically - USAID funds were going in financial year 2023.
https://www.statista.com/chart/17610/countries-receiving-us-foreign-aid/
The biggest receiver of USAID in 2023 was Ukraine, where war is ongoing and very intense. All the top aid-receiving areas were either affected by war, or countries next to war zones where refugees are being accommodated by the million (e.g. Jordan accommodates lots of refugees from the Syrian civil war).
In short - yes. People will suffer. Preventable deaths will occur in considerable numbers. A small number may even occur in Ukraine (example: kids who miss vaccination and catch some illness) despite its considerably greater medical capability and having other sources of assistance. But most of preventable deaths will occur in remote land-locked places with limited connections and limited local capability - imagine for example South Sudan.