Democratic Senator Michael Bennet says GOP colleagues have privately confessed that the now-dead immigration deal was the toughest one they’d ever get.
Ukraine is a bulwark against Russian aggression. If it falls, Russia will be emboldened to bully other countries with impunity. That isn’t being a war hawk - it’s defending the status quo and its benefits.
Why should we send 74 billion in aid to Israel and Ukraine when 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, we are the only OECD nation without some form of universal healthcare, and over 650,000 Americans are homeless (a 12 percent increase during 2023). Do you honestly believe that there is a higher priority to send obscenely large sums of money in the form of aid to other countries rather than focusing on the material issues we face as a nation?
Unless you want to house people in tanks or feed them RPGs, this money was never going to help them in the first place. We don’t ship over pallets of $100 bills, we send them munitions that are going to expire soon and will need replacing.
This is such a low effort response that showcases US apathy for it’s own poverty conditions. Of the $75.4 billion sent to Ukraine alone, only $26.4 billion was financial (loans, funds, other financial support), and on top of that only $2.7 billion is used for humanitarian purposes like food, healthcare, etc). The remaining $46.3 billion is reflected as military spending towards weapons and equipment, security training, grants and loans for weapons, etc, all of which is covered from our $800 billion dollar “defense” budget.
So now that we’ve addressed your concerns about how tax dollars fund military spending, I ask again, do you honestly believe that there is a higher priority to spend large sums of money in the form of aid to other countries rather than focusing on the material issues we face as a nation?
I’d argue they already did and yeah fuck Putin but we should be questioning whether it is morally right to support a stalemate that is killing a whole generation of Ukrainian men.
We should absolutely be questioning how it is the American’s responsibility to support that indefinitely with taxes when we are so insanely in debt. How are any of these carve-outs appropriate in an “Immigration” bill?
Strangely, a lot of the military support we give to other countries is basically free. We maintain a vast stockpile of munitions that all have an expiration date. A lot of these billions going to our allies would just go to a very expensive landfill otherwise. I don’t know to what extent that was true in these cases.
Furthermore, I think giving Ukrainians the means to defend their country, even dying to do so, is preferable to allowing Russia to slow-genocide them like Israel is doing to Palestinians. It’s not our “responsibility” to get involved, but it is in our best interest to oppose Putin.
To your last point, it has nothing to do with immigration, but that was the deal Republicans demanded.
This bill was shit and we should be glad it’s dead
War hawks cope and seethe
Ukraine is a bulwark against Russian aggression. If it falls, Russia will be emboldened to bully other countries with impunity. That isn’t being a war hawk - it’s defending the status quo and its benefits.
Why should we send 74 billion in aid to Israel and Ukraine when 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck, we are the only OECD nation without some form of universal healthcare, and over 650,000 Americans are homeless (a 12 percent increase during 2023). Do you honestly believe that there is a higher priority to send obscenely large sums of money in the form of aid to other countries rather than focusing on the material issues we face as a nation?
Unless you want to house people in tanks or feed them RPGs, this money was never going to help them in the first place. We don’t ship over pallets of $100 bills, we send them munitions that are going to expire soon and will need replacing.
This is such a low effort response that showcases US apathy for it’s own poverty conditions. Of the $75.4 billion sent to Ukraine alone, only $26.4 billion was financial (loans, funds, other financial support), and on top of that only $2.7 billion is used for humanitarian purposes like food, healthcare, etc). The remaining $46.3 billion is reflected as military spending towards weapons and equipment, security training, grants and loans for weapons, etc, all of which is covered from our $800 billion dollar “defense” budget.
So now that we’ve addressed your concerns about how tax dollars fund military spending, I ask again, do you honestly believe that there is a higher priority to spend large sums of money in the form of aid to other countries rather than focusing on the material issues we face as a nation?
How is the status quo benefiting anyone? The lines aren’t moving, soldiers and civilians are dying daily.
And yes, you are still a war hawk if you support the status quo of war to continue.
IMO Ukraine should be admitted to NATO after negotiating a peace treaty.
I agree with the Israel part.
Russia needs to learn the hard way not to start ground wars in europe
I’d argue they already did and yeah fuck Putin but we should be questioning whether it is morally right to support a stalemate that is killing a whole generation of Ukrainian men. We should absolutely be questioning how it is the American’s responsibility to support that indefinitely with taxes when we are so insanely in debt. How are any of these carve-outs appropriate in an “Immigration” bill?
Strangely, a lot of the military support we give to other countries is basically free. We maintain a vast stockpile of munitions that all have an expiration date. A lot of these billions going to our allies would just go to a very expensive landfill otherwise. I don’t know to what extent that was true in these cases.
Furthermore, I think giving Ukrainians the means to defend their country, even dying to do so, is preferable to allowing Russia to slow-genocide them like Israel is doing to Palestinians. It’s not our “responsibility” to get involved, but it is in our best interest to oppose Putin.
To your last point, it has nothing to do with immigration, but that was the deal Republicans demanded.