After weeks of infighting and creative use of House rules to force a vote, Congress last week succeeded in passing a long-delayed $61 billion aid package benefiting Ukraine. The Senate passed the bill earlier this week and the bill will be signed by the president.
As reported by Eric Lendrum in American Greatness, “the bill will spend $47.7 billion via the Department of Defense on training, equipment, weapons, and other forms of military support to Ukraine as it continues its war against Russia, with another $13.4 billion to replenish American equipment that has already been sent to Ukraine.”
That’s likely good news for defense contractors who will benefit from the infusion of cash but will it actually benefit the Ukrainian people as intended?
Ted Snider, writing in the American Conservative notes, “There are five things the aid package will not do for Ukraine. It will not provide enough money. It will not provide the badly needed weapons, nor deliver them on time. It will not provide the even more badly needed troops. And it will not provide victory.”
Given Ukraine’s loss of manpower over the past two years, all that money and weapons aren’t much good without the personnel to put them to use.
And what exactly are the American taxpayers, who are footing the bill, getting in return? More debt and a government that seems tone-deaf to their concerns.
Securing the U.S border is on the minds of many voters heading into the year’s election. Yet our own border seems a distant afterthought to D.C. lawmakers and policymakers.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) called out House Speaker Mike Johnson for choosing to represent, “the reckless demands of the war-mongers, neocons and the military industrial complex” over the American people,
Gosar: “Our border cannot be an afterthought. We need a Speaker who puts America first rather than bending to the reckless demands of the warmongers, neo-cons & the military industrial complex making billions from a costly & endless war half a world away.”https://t.co/XPT1q4PUUo
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) April 19, 2024
Does the ongoing funding of foreign wars make the American people any safer, more free or more prosperous? Historically, the answer appears to be “no.”
Former Congressman Ron Paul of Texas, in a 2009 House speech, asked a series of questions about the nature of U.S. foreign policy that seem even more relevant today.
Paul, in his famous “What If” speech wondered, “What if our foreign policy of the past century is deeply flawed and has not served our national security interests?” Paul added, “What if the American people learned the truth that our foreign policy has nothing to do with national security and it never changes from one administration to the next?”
Ron Paul’s 2009 “What If” Speech….
These words are more relevant today than ever.
“Madam Speaker, I have a few questions for my colleagues.
What if our foreign policy of the past century is deeply flawed
and has not served our national security interests?
What if we wake up… pic.twitter.com/bUp13AyFT8— Uncommon Sense (@Uncommonsince76) April 23, 2024
At the moment, the D.C. establishment seems impervious to the growing dissatisfaction of struggling Americans who are seeing their hard-earned dollars siphoned away through taxes and then used to run up an already staggering $32 trillion national debt.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) says the powers that pushed for this aid package are already asking for more and that Speaker Johnson shows no signs that he’ll resist going along with the Democrats again.
They are going to want more money for Ukraine and they are already saying it.
The $61 billion isn’t going to last long and Washington is obsessed with its proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.
If Johnson is still Speaker, he will pass it again and give Schumer whatever he wants.…
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) April 25, 2024
The American public hasn’t yet reached the breaking point but to continue ignoring those cracking noises is probably a bad idea.