Posted on 10/20/2023 11:44:07 AM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a key ally of Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), declared Friday that President Biden’s $100 billion foreign aid and national security funding request is “dead on arrival” on Capitol Hill.
“President Biden’s slush fund proposal is dead on arrival, just like his budgets,” Cotton said in a statement.
“We will not spend, for example, $3.5 billion to address the ‘potential needs of Gazans,” he added, arguing that humanitarian assistance to Gaza could inadvertently fund “a resupply line for Hamas terrorists.”
(Excerpt) Read more at thehill.com ...
Eh I think it was a demand
LOL...Biden doesn’t care one whit what Congress says. Or SCOTUS.
Yea, he’s got a phone and a pen.....Or was that a pudding pop and a diaper
“humanitarian assistance to Gaza could inadvertently fund “a resupply line for Hamas terrorists.”
Could? Pretty much gautenteed.
Why is it DOA? Isn’t $100 b enough? /s
That’s fine, but since the bill has to originate in the House, it won’t be getting to them for awhile. Or just let spending origniate in the Senate. Who cares.
When I’m king, members of Congress who use that tired cliche will be flogged on the steps of the west from of the Capitol
Translation = “We are increasing this to 150 billion.”
FTA-—“The Biden $106 billion proposal is going nowhere, and Senate Republicans will take the lead on crafting a funding bill that protects Americans and their interests,” Sen Cotton said.
<><>“We will not spend $3.5 billion to address the ‘potential needs of Gazans,” arguing that humanitarian assistance to Gaza could inadvertently fund “a resupply line for Hamas terrorists.”
<><>Sen Cotton also balked at spending tax dollars to fund $11.8 billion for Ukraine’s nonmilitary needs, such as retirement pensions for Ukrainian government employees.
<><>“Nor will we spend $4.7 billion tax dollars for housing, transportation, and ‘services’ for illegal aliens in the United States rather than deporting them,” Cotton warned.
Cotton’s tough talk signals a difficult negotiation ahead on Biden’s request for emergency funding for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan.
Senate Republicans say that any new money for the war in Ukraine must be paired with changes to immigration and asylum policy to slow the flow of migrants across the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Could?”
Doesn’t the sheer, abject stupidity of these people drive you nuts? You could show them a perfectly sunny Indian Summer day and they’d tell you “It COULD be a blizzard any second now.”
Tax dollars sought under the guise of “border security”
Joe Biden seeks Billions to Fly, Bus More Migrants into U.S. Communities
Breitbart ^ | 10/20/2023 | NEIL MUNRO
Posted on 10/20/2023, 12:32:40 PM by ChicagoConservative27
President Joe Biden’s deputies are asking Congress for $14 billion extra tax dollars to help bus illegal migrants up to the U.S. border and onward into hotels in many cities and towns around the nation.
The request is being touted as “border security” even though very few funds would be used to exclude economic migrants. For example, Biden’s deputies have ushered more than 300,000 economic migrants through the U.S. border in September alone. The 2023 inflow has added up to roughly 2.5 million, not counting legal migrants and temporary workers.
Instead, much of the requested money would be used to help more job-seeking migrants reach the U.S. border, register and release them, and then bus them to hotels, job training, and American workplaces around the United States.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
This is what we’ve come to. We’ve fallen so low as a country that an American
candidate is only electable by whatever he says (and doe$) about a foreign country.
A demented Biden’s reelection chance were nil, according to the laws of diminishing returns...........
until the attack on Israel fell in his lap. Now he’s suddenly morphed into a “strong, decisive “leader.”
America’s president is harassing Congress.....not to finance America’s needs.....
Biden wants $100 billion for Israel and Ukraine.
What?
Biden’s spending billions we do not have, then saddles taxpayers with the onerous borrowing costs. Taxpayers’ children and grandchildren are compelled to pay the outrageous bills.
<><>Why does the US have to go into debt for these pampered foreigners?
<><>Why cant they stand on their own two feet?
<><>Why cant wealthy Israel and money-grubbing Ukraine do the borrowing for their own needs?
apnews.com
BY ANGELO FICHERA
Published 4:10 PM EDT, March 7, 2023
While the U.S. is indeed providing weapons and equipment to Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, it has also provided billions in financial assistance to the country .
Former Congressman Adam Kinzinger, a Republican from Illinois, is taking aim at Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has been critical of U.S. aid to Ukraine. “The aid is not pallets of cash. It’s in the form of military equipment, assigned a value, that is donated,” Kinzinger wrote inaccurately in a tweet. “I’m sure she doesn’t understand this.”
But while the U.S. has indeed sent Bradley vehicles, ammunition, weapons and other equipment to Ukraine during its war with Russia, the support doesn’t stop there.
“We’re providing not only military assistance,” Tom Graham, a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations with expertise on U.S. foreign policy and Ukraine, told The Associated Press. “We are providing financial assistance — budgetary support — and there’s humanitarian assistance as well.”
Between January 2022 and January 2023, the U.S. committed more than $26 billion to Ukraine in financial assistance, according to data compiled by the Ukraine Support Tracker at the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, a German think tank. That’s about a third of the roughly $77 billion in total aid noted by Kiel, including humanitarian and military assistance, pledged by the U.S. government. The numbers represent money promised, not entirely distributed.
Another tally from the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget places the total amount of aid approved by Congress in 2022 for supporting the Ukrainian government and allies at about $113 billion. That includes about $27 billion in economic support funds, $7.9 billion for international disaster assistance and $6.6 billion to support and relocate refugees.
Graham noted that the war has wrecked Ukraine’s economy and that U.S. assistance has helped keep the government functioning.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has in releases and a report to Congress outlined how budgetary support to the Ukrainian government has been used. Some of the funding has been spent, for example, on social assistance payments and salaries for health care workers, first responders and educators. It also helps cover pensions and support Ukrainians displaced by the war.
Still, the largest bucket of overall U.S. aid committed to Ukraine — more than $46 billion, according to Kiel’s tracker — is military support.
U.S. funding to support Ukraine, while appropriated by Congress, comes from different sources. For example, in some cases, assistance comes from funding that is periodically tapped by the Biden administration in the form of a “presidential drawdown.” There’s also the Defense Department’s Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.
Much of the military equipment has indeed been pulled directly from existing U.S. military inventory, as Kinzinger noted in his tweet. But funding has also been used to purchase new weapons from industry manufacturers as well.
Graham said in some cases assistance is also used to replenish existing equipment provided to Ukraine by U.S. allies. He added that military support also comes in the form of things such as training and logistical support.
Members of Congress have questioned how closely the U.S. is tracking its aid to Ukraine to ensure that it is not subject to fraud or ending up in the wrong hands. The Pentagon’s inspector general told lawmakers at a Tuesday hearing that his office has found no evidence of such corruption or wrongdoing, but cautioned that investigations are only in their early stages.
An AP inquiry to Kinzinger through his group, Country First, was not returned.
I will pray that all his “wants” are denied. Not that I expect that to happen. I have lost any hope for real America to survive.
Whoever pays that should be shot up against a wall.
Prayer is all we have left.
snip
In total, about $113.1 billion in funding for Ukraine was authorized in 2022, according to an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. Most of that – about $67.1 billion – was for defense-related spending, the CRFB said. The other $46 billion included $26.9 billion for an economic support fund; $7.9 billion for international disaster assistance; $6.6 billion in assistance for refugees; $1.5 billion for assistance for Europe, Eurasia and Central Asia; plus another $3.1 billion for other nondefense spending.
The U.S. Agency for International Development has been coordinating with the Treasury Department to distribute authorized economic aid to Ukraine in tranches. In a report published on Feb. 17, USAID said it had so far provided $13 billion in “direct budget support” to the government of Ukraine, or “GoU” for short.
“This funding has helped the Ukraine pay the salaries of 618,000 educators, 517,000 health workers, and 56,500 first responders,” the report says. “It has also helped them to sustain critical healthcare services, meet its pension responsibilities for 9.8 million people, assist 1.3 million internally displaced persons, provide housing assistance to 4.1 million people, and provide social assistance to 240,000 low-income families and 480,000 persons with disabilities.”
That report did not say how much was spent on pensions, but a USAID spokesperson sent us another USAID report to Congress that indicated $4 billion of budget support for Ukraine was spent on pensions as of Nov. 30, 2022.
The bottom line: While the video of Biden talking about providing funding to pay Ukrainian pensioners may have caught some by surprise, the fact is that Biden made those comments BEFORE Congress approved the money months ago on a bipartisan basis.
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Update, Feb. 23, 2023: After we published this story, a USAID spokesperson responded to our request for more information. We updated this story to include the amount spent on pensions.
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