It's an ugly situation, but a divided Congress with Democratic and Republican control has finally accomplished its most basic job: funding the government. Now, the question is whether you can do more than the bare minimum.
Washington has a lot of unfinished business, but the most pressing need may be more aid to Ukraine in its fight for survival against the Russian invaders. And there are some interesting hints from House Speaker Mike Johnson that Congress may finally be close to considering taking some action, just as Ukraine's defenses are beginning to loosen.
Since the Russian invasion in February 2022, the United States has provided approximately $42 billion in military aid to Ukraine, more than any other country. But Congress hasn't approved any new aid since last summer, and Washington's turmoil has left Ukraine on the front lines needed to thwart Russian advances and protect Ukrainian cities from repeated onslaughts of missiles, bombs and drones. There is a shortage of important weapons.
After early setbacks, Russia ramped up defense production, importing weapons from Iran and North Korea, and bringing hundreds of thousands of new troops into the fight. Despite the sanctions, Russia continues to keep its war machine running, earning significant amounts from oil sales, its main source of income.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has long bet that Russia can outlast Ukraine and its Western allies, but recent efforts by some Republicans in the House of Representatives to block further U.S. aid , seems to prove President Putin right. If Putin wins in Ukraine, he will gain another foothold to threaten the West and demonstrate to other dictators with territorial ambitions that a good fight pays.
Chairman Johnson has finally signaled that he plans to stand up to President Putin and support some kind of legislation to help Ukraine. The Senate has already passed a bill that would provide $60 billion to Ukraine, along with other funding for humanitarian assistance in Israel and Gaza, in line with President Biden's request. Mr. Johnson has said the House's conservative coalition will not pass the Senate bill, and it is unclear how he will overcome an inner circle of ultra-conservative Republicans who oppose additional aid. do not have.
But as Punchbowl News recently explained, there are some arcane tricks that could allow the bill to pass. The key trick is getting the bill through the House process and to the floor for a vote. That's because almost all Democrats and some Republicans support aid to Ukraine, which is more than enough to pass the bill. The problem for Mr Johnson is that passing the bill with Democratic support could in itself be the trigger that ends the Conservative Party's premiership in less than a year. Mr. Johnson was counting on Democratic support to pass a final government funding bill, which prompted Georgia's embattled Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to threaten to oust Mr. Johnson.
The outlook for whether, when, and how much the House will pass on aid to Ukraine is complicated by the continued fratricide among Republicans. Greg Valliere of AGF Investments recently wrote, “If the Johnson-Democratic alliance holds, the next move could be a deal to give Ukraine nearly $60 billion in aid by early April.” .
Others are more skeptical. “U.S. aid to Ukraine remains in limbo in Congress,” Byron Curran of Capital Alpha Partners explained in a March 26 research note. “We have low to moderate confidence that something can be accomplished between April and May of this year, but we have doubts that the full request or the Senate version will pass or become law.”
Aiding Ukraine is a political game in Washington, but on the battlefield in Ukraine it is literally a matter of life and death. “Ukraine is bleeding,” former diplomats Ivo Dalder and Karen Donfried recently wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine. “Without new U.S. military aid, Ukrainian ground forces may not be able to hold the line against a relentless Russian military.”
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Stephen Pifer and John Herbst of the Atlantic Council recently visited Ukraine and reported that reduced U.S. aid is having “impacts on the battlefield,” including “increased Ukrainian casualties.” Ukraine, once roughly on par with Russia in terms of available ammunition, now faces a 10-to-1 shortage in artillery shells. There could also be severe shortages of air defense ammunition and other critical weapons.
Critics of aid to Ukraine say the United States should address its own problems before spending money on other people's problems. But that is a false choice and false logic. The United States can and does fund many things at once. Republicans initially wanted to enact new legislation tightening border controls as a condition for additional aid to Ukraine, but changed their minds and rejected their own border bill in February.
The United States' interest in supporting Ukraine is curbing Russian aggression and sapping the military and economic power of perhaps the world's most troublesome country. American taxpayers provide more than $800 billion each year for national defense. Most of that money is aimed at containing Russia and preparing to defeat it in the event of war.
As the graph below shows, aid to Ukraine is only a small portion of US defense spending. In 2022, total US defense spending was $812 billion, but military aid to Ukraine was $46 billion, just 5.6% of defense spending. And that aid to Ukraine would directly weaken one of America's major military competitors, resulting in Ukrainians fighting and dying instead of Americans.
Of the $60 billion that Biden is seeking from Ukraine in 2024, at least one-third, or $20 billion, will actually go to U.S. defense companies, which will essentially sell supplies to the U.S. government and help the U.S. will send it to Ukraine. It supports American jobs. Much of the rest will be used to train the Ukrainian military and buy weapons from other sources. The United States is not sending bags of cash to Ukraine for Ukrainian authorities to use as needed.
Although the momentum has recently shifted in Russia's favor, Putin's forces have sacrificed huge numbers of troops to capture small tracts of land. Ukraine has not advanced, but it has not surrendered either. Ukraine has won meaningful victories by using drones to sink Russian ships and attack Russian oil refineries that could strain the country's energy supplies. There is still time for Western aid to make a decisive difference to the war.
And if the best outcome is for Russia to struggle for a long time in a war it can't win but can't get out of, that would also be a good use of money.
Rick Newman is a senior columnist in the United States. Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter @rickjnewman.
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