While the counter-offensive in Ukraine has been slow-going, President Joe Biden is already looking for another taxpayer-funded infusion of cash into the war effort.
According to a new report, Biden will be asking Congress to provide another $13 billion in appropriations.
President Joe Biden on Thursday will ask Congress to provide more than $13 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine, another massive infusion of cash as the Russian invasion wears on and Ukraine pushes a counteroffensive against the Kremlin’s deeply entrenched forces, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.
The last such request from the White House, made in November, was met and then some — Congress approved more than what the Democratic president had requested. But there’s a different dynamic this time. A political divide on the issue has grown, with the Republican-led House facing enormous pressure to demonstrate support for the party’s leader, Donald Trump, who has been very skeptical of the war. And American support for the effort has been slowly softening.
It was not immediately apparent why the White House was requesting that amount of money at this point in top. As of this writing, around $77 billion of the $113 billion already appropriated for aid to Ukraine has actually been spent. Most of that is for military equipment while the rest is humanitarian and financial assistance.
In June, it was revealed that the federal budget deficit in the United States was $2.1 trillion over the last year. That marked a 50 percent increase from fiscal year 2022.
One of the questions about further increasing appropriations when past ones haven’t been fully spent yet is what happens to the money if the war ends. As RedState recently reported, Ukraine has been meeting with Chinese officials, acting as mediators, in order to work out a peace plan. Presumably, if a peace deal was agreed to, the money would then go toward reconstruction.
With Republicans controlling the House, Biden faces a tougher battle to secure new spending for Ukraine. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy could delay a vote on such a measure. Still, it’s likely his push will succeed given McCarthy has long supported spending on Ukraine, joined by many members of the GOP caucus.