Biden US Military Aid To Ukraine To Top $65 Billion
āŖ This week, Congress is sending another $12 billion in military gear and other aid to Ukraine, pushing the total transfer up to $65 billion in 2022…
According toĀ an estimateĀ from theĀ Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the $65 billion is roughly equivalent to Russiaās entire annual military budget for 2021, including Russian soldier pay and housing,
The Congressional spending is more than all the military-related annual spending made by theĀ United KingdomĀ and isĀ almost twiceĀ as much as France spends each year, as well.Ā The aid is twice as large as the U.S. Armyās underfunded annual spending on theĀ development and purchase of new weaponry.
According to theĀ U.S. Census Bureau, the spending amounts to about an average $200 liability for every American. In 2020, four out of ten American households earned an annual income of less than $40,000 per year.
The gusher of aid to Ukraine is more than four times as much as the $15 billion for the entire protective southern border wall sought by President Donald Trump.Ā
There’s also a corresponding push in sophisticated military gear & weaponry: that amount of aid is 300 times more than theĀ $197 millionĀ Congress spent in 2021 to purchase a new āmulti-energyā drug-detection devices for border agents to find drugs hidden & smuggled inside trucks & passenger cars. Many of the crossing points into the U.S. lack the proper scanners: even whileĀ 100,000 AmericansĀ die each year of drug overdose…Ā
The Congressional largesse for Ukraine is eight timesĀ the $8 billion annual budgetĀ for the entire US Immigration Customs Enforcement agency. That agency has recently been put on a budget diet & forced to stand down by Immigration Chief Mayorkas because he doesn’t want his ICE agents deporting more than a few thousand of the 35 million illegal migrants already in the United States.
This new aid package to Ukraine understates the true cost of the included military support to Ukraine. Much of the U.S.-developed weaponry ā such as Javelin missiles and satellite-guided artillery shells ā have already been delivered from U.S. Army warehouse stockpiles. This direct transfer of warfare technology spares Ukraine from having to pay their fair share of weaponry development costs.
In essence, Ukraine is profiting from the value of U.S. spy aircraft & spy satellites without contributing directly towards building those networks.Ā That technology is now being integrated with U.S.-built, long-range, satellite-guided rockets to strike Russian ammunition dumps, headquarters & high-tech surveillance gear.Ā
This U.S. weaponry has been specifically developed to counter the Soviet Army in the Cold War & is extremely effective. So far, it has outperformed to even up any Russian advantage in tanks, aircraft, artillery and surveillance gear; often including sniper-style strikes at distances of up to 20 miles.Ā The three or four Undersea Nord Stream Pipeline explosions have now crippled whatever strategic advantage the Russians held in Europeās energy market.Ā However, is but a small slice of the enormous economic and political stakes waged in war.
Putin invaded Ukraine in February after 20 years of post-Cold War diplomatic struggles & constant standoffs with the United States over Ukraineās Russian-populated eastern regions and proposed NATO membership. The dispute went hot in 2014 when Russia reclaimed Crimea and helped ethnic Russians living in eastern Ukraine ā the Donbas Region ā to break away from Ukraineās control.
Russiaās February offensive has stalled because of Russian errors, U.S. weapons, and Ukrainian bravery. Russia is now trying to keep control of Russian-populated provinces in eastern Ukraine and Crimea as the Ukraine army reclaims ground with US weaponry. So far, tens of thousands of Russian soldiers have reportedly been killed, alongside a large number of Ukrainian soldiers.Ā
On September 28, a U.S. official threatened Russia with ācatastrophicā retaliation should they use even the smallest of its many nuclear weapons to hold off the Ukrainian army:
“When it comes to the contingency planning that weāve engaged in for the potential use of a nuclear weapon by Russia in Ukraine, we have spoken very clearly of the implications for Russia were that to happen. Weāve used a number of adjectives. We have said there would be catastrophic, severe, strong, profound implications for Russia. All of those are accurate. We are ā we stand by all of those descriptors. The point that we have made both publicly and privately to the Russians is that the consequences would be real, and they would be extraordinary.”
The threat was made shortly after State Department spokesman Ned Price dismissed as āpreposterousā any suggestion that the U.S. covertly destroyed Russiaās gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea. Such claims are āRussian disinformation and should be treated as such,ā Price said.Ā
Ukrainian officials have given no indications they wish to drop Russian demand for control of Crimea. The peninsula has been held by Russia since 1783 whenĀ Catherine the Great captured it from the Turkish Empire.
As Congress gushes ever more money into Ukraine, it also shortchanges the vital needs for most everyday Americans.
The Spending is 240 times the $260 million amount Congress spent training nurses in 2022. The Spending is too little to train all of the Americans who want to become nurses, so helping hospital chains argue that they need to import cheaper, compliantĀ foreign nurses. Similarly, Congress each year refuses to provide additional funds to train more Americans to work asĀ doctors.
Ukraineās Spending exceeds the much-delayed $53 billion āCHIPSāAct intended to fund & reestablish U.S. production domination of computer chips.Ā Congress has only spent $10 billion to develop technology centers outside Silicon Valley, Virginia, Texas, and New York. The $10 billion program also covers Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska Iowa, Tennessee and other states is only one-sixth of the fast-tracked aid to Ukraine.Ā This Ukraine Spending isĀ 3,000 timesĀ the $20 million needed to fix the failed water supply in Jackson, Mississippi.
The Spending is 200 times as large as the DemocratsāĀ $300 million packageĀ to boost nationwide policing. That election-eve bill was hobbled by far-left opposition and has yet to be approved by the Senate.Ā
The Ukraine Funding is more than the zero dollars being spent to help Americans who lose jobs because of free trade via the lapsed Trade Adjustment Assistance Program. That long-standing program has been operational since 1974, but itĀ stopped acceptingĀ new people & closed its doors in July.Ā
The Congressional gold rush to supply Ukraine is also in notable contrast with spending cuts urged by theĀ GOP congressional budget hawksĀ in 2017. In that year, the GOP proposal was calling for $500 billion in cuts from Medicare and $150 billion from Medicaid & Obamacare. āŖ
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