The question of additional monetary aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan is now front and center in Washington. If you’re a football fan, you’d say it’s like overtime in the Super Bowl, and there are only a few seconds left. If you like baseball, you might say it’s the ninth inning of the final game of the World Series. There are two outs, and the bases are loaded, and we’ll know who wins with the next pitch.
About three months ago, when President Biden made his original request for additional increases in funding over the recently approved budget, the Republican-led US House of Representatives acted right away, and they quickly passed a $14.5 billion military aid package to Israel; however, in order not to increase federal spending and the national debt any further, they proposed a $14.5 billion reduction from the recently passed $80 billion increase in spending for the IRS. Unfortunately, the Democratic-led Senate never took up the bill and insisted upon an all or nothing approach with no corresponding decrease in spending. Consequently, nothing happened.
The President then tried another tactic. He rhetorically reversed course, and admitted the US-Mexican border was not secure. Then, according to a headline in the New York Times, Biden Tied Ukraine Aid to Border Security, and it Backfired on Him. It certainly did backfire, and for a number of (we think) good reasons, the “bi-partisan” Senate compromise went down in flames.
So now it’s in the last minute of overtime in the Super Bowl, and the US Senate has passed a $95.3 billion stand-alone package that contains a fresh round of aid for Ukraine and funds for Israel and Taiwan. That bill has now been sent to the US House of Representatives, but the Republican House leadership has rejected it, wanting, in return, even more immigration restrictions than was proposed in the failed Senate compromise bill.
President Biden is upping the pressure on the House, and he says Republicans will be responsible if the Soviets conquer Ukraine. “Stand up for Ukraine or stand up with Putin,” he charges. The Wall Street Journal basically agrees, praising the passage of the bill and lauding the Senate for Rejecting American Retreat. May legislators on both sides of the aisle are raising the fear that say if we do not aid Ukraine, the Russians will next invade Poland and the Baltics.
Rubbish! These politicians are resurrecting the old “Domino” theory that got our country enmeshed in the disastrous Vietnam War. The theory went this way: if we did not defeat the Communists in South Vietnam, all of Asia would soon turn Communist. Of course, that did not happen. The US lost in Vietnam, and Asia did not fall to Communism. We think the same applies to Ukraine. If anything, the “vaunted” Russian Army has shown that it is not very capable, for it has not been able to conquer a much smaller and less powerful Ukraine, let alone trying to threaten and invade Europe.
Don’t get us wrong, we are not against giving more aid to Ukraine, or to Taiwan and Israel for that matter; but the bigger threat to America is that we are going broke as a nation. We simply have way too much debt to borrow and spend on more foreign wars. We favor the original approach of the US House of Representatives – if Biden wants to spend more, then he should find a way to cut somewhere else. In addition, it’s time for the Europeans to pay a bigger share of the financial burden. They have gotten better on increasing their defense budgets (especially those countries that border Russia), but as the chart above shows, they need to do a helluva lot more to defend themselves, and not rely so heavily on the American taxpayer.
In sum, we think it is a mistake to tie military aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan to the issue of the US border. Instead, as we argued in our November article, 16 Tons: We should examine each spending request individually and critically, and ask hard questions. We think the United States simply has too much debt to take the Biden approach on military intervention and spend “as long as it takes.”
In regard to the border, the polls show that the American people want much greater restrictions on the migrant flow. The pressure is now on Biden to use his executive powers, as former President Trump did, to restrict the huge migrant influx.
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