The Biden administration on Monday sent Congress an urgent warning about the need to approve tens of billions of dollars in military and economic assistance to Ukraine, saying Kyiv’s war effort to defend itself from Russia’s invasion may grind to a halt without it.
In a letter to House and Senate leaders and also released publicly, Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young warned the U.S. will run out of funding to send weapons and assistance to Ukraine by the end of the year, saying that would “kneecap” Ukraine on the battlefield.
She added that the U.S. already has run out of money that it has used to prop up Ukraine’s economy, and “if Ukraine’s economy collapses, they will not be able to keep fighting, full stop.”
What about us Americans struggling in our economy?
Hmm, maybe it’s time to stop passing trillions of dollars worth of tax cuts for the 1%?
The money spent on Ukraine has been essentially pennies relative to any significant domestic program.
If you instead redistributed all the $113 billion spent since the invasion began in 2022, you could give each American a grand total of $340. A nice chunk of change, to be sure, but spread out over the course of the war, this is literally $15 a month.
Personally, I’m okay having $340 less over the course of nearly two years if the alternative is tens of thousands of dead Ukrainians and Russia successfully re-asserting that violent conquest will not be resisted. Moldova would almost certainly be invaded next as well, since they’re not in NATO. $15 a month is a pretty damn cheap price to pay to protect a democracy and save countless lives (not to mention, the torture and rape the Russian army has been committing as well)
Do you feel the same way about every other conflict in this world or just the one in Europe? What about spending money to prevent the conflict in Africa (Ethiopia) or in Asia (Myanmar)? Will you be willing to pay higher taxes to fight off the drug cartels in Central and South America?
We got all these issues here in the US. Homelessness, gun violence, drug overdoses, overcrowded prisons, massive personal debt (student loans, car, credit card), etc. I don’t care to arm another nation and play proxy war.
Well, we do already fund a ton of foreign aid all over the world, so quite a lot of that is already happening. But to address those particular things: homelessness is not a problem where simply throwing money at it magically solves it; it’s incredibly complex. New York City alone spends 3.5 billion dollars a year just on homelessness. The only financial solution to gun violence is to bribe the SCOTUS to repeal DC v. Heller. Drug policy is largely in the hands of the states, but even then, there’s no simple solution to it, particularly when you have to deal with local politics for things like treatment facilities. Prisons are largely state operated. Personal debt is largely outside the scope of the federal government, but even then, student loan forgiveness was attempted. But to throw a number at it, redirecting all Ukraine aid towards individual credit card debt would pay for only 10% of it.
Are there particular federal programs of comparable financial impact with sufficient political support that you think would pay significant returns if boosted by foreign aid money (ignoring the general decline in global stability that would ensue).
Will you be willing to pay higher taxes to fight off the drug cartels in Central and South America?
I mean, the economic dividends there are obvious. If it really was as simple as throwing some money at Central and South America in order to make the cartels vanish forever and turn those countries into stable countries that we could do significant trade with, we’d earn far more than we paid. But that price tag doesn’t actually exist, because these problems are more complicated than simply throwing money at them.
I didn’t make my point clear in the previous post so I’ll state my stance. I don’t really care to send money to Ukraine so they can fight their war. I think maybe a good percentage of Americans would feel the same (mostly republicans). I don’t have the same reasons as they have however. When I indicated the money is better spent here I was referring to lowering my taxes. I know that the money to Ukraine won’t even lower my taxes by 0.01% and the real money sink is military and social security but the optics don’t look good in my eyes.
Take the perspective of the other side. “I’m paying all this money in taxes, my roads are bad, crime from the drugs are around my corner, my job ain’t covering all my expenses like it used to. And those people in Washington are giving money to the Europeans so they can fight a war!”
Not to mention getting to neener neener about being on the side of international law and order if only for once at least.
That’s just old fashioned capitalism. You’ll never win.
Should not have given all that money to Israel. And now they want more tax money. Ugh
edit: typo
The GOP will, of course, stand with Putin. The GOP has always famously stood by the USSR/Russia. I believe it was Ronald Reagen who bravely said “Mr. Gorbachev, build me a fucking wall.”
Hey I’ve got an idea, let’s drag the Ukraine war out another 2 decades and see how much death and destruction that can continue to fester.
I’m sure it won’t lead to millions of angry, broken men who will never be able to feel integrate with society and cause a spiraling of violence and crime throughout Europe and the world reverberating for decades into the future.
Oh, and drug use and homelessness. Almost forgot about that, silly me.
Well, we could end this horror-show tomorrow by turning Moscow into a sheet of glass.
Let’s call Vlad Puta’s bluff and see how many of his 50 year old ICBM’s even make it out of their silos, much less to a target. They are widely thought to be ill-maintained, looted by a very active military black market, and old as shit. Add to that our space and air defense spending, and I’m betting the only country that would experience any Russian radiation would be Russia.
Classic US. Overspends and forces a debt they will not end up paying. Instead, the US will probably end up with several land/mining rights from Ukraine and maybe Russia, since they won’t be able to pay either.
Hmm Russia’s got oil. We like oil.
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Chappelle’s Show - Black Bush (ft. Jamie Foxx)
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The Republicans were always Putins best friends in the US. Trumps admiration for dictators didn’t help it either.
One more billion should do it.
We can start by stopping aid to Israel. They have enough wealth to fund their own genocides.
They have a fucking Intel fab.
