President Joe Biden last week asked Congress to provide $106 billion in emergency money to confront multiple crises around the world and at home. As Washington begins to debate the president’s request, here are the Top 5 reasons for Congress to oppose it.
1. Inadequate Aid to Israel
Biden cynically decided to include emergency aid to our ally Israel as a small part of his budget-busting supplemental request. Less than 15% of the overall funding is aimed to help Israel respond to the most brutal terrorist attack in its history.
As Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts and Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, wrote last week in an op-ed, Congress should pass Israel aid quickly as a stand-alone measure for Biden to sign.
American aid to Israel during this conflict is in our vital national interest, enjoys wide bipartisan support, and will be used by Israel to defeat the Hamas terrorist group militarily.
2. Nonmilitary Aid to Ukraine
Biden is requesting a massive amount of funding for Ukraine that won’t be used for that nation’s military operations against Russia, which invaded Feb. 24, 2022. The president seeks to route nearly $12 billion in taxpayer funding through the World Bank to subsidize Ukrainian civil servants.
None of this $12 billion is expected to increase Ukraine’s military capability to win its war with Russia. Europe also has failed to come anywhere close to matching the U.S. contribution to Ukraine, providing less than a third of the $61 billion total sought by Biden in this request.
Biden’s supplemental request for Ukraine funding also fails to include the appointment of a special inspector general to oversee the $61 billion in new funding in addition to the $113 billion in U.S. taxpayer aid that already has gone to Ukraine.
3. Low Weapons Stockpiles
Although some of the $61 billion in emergency funding requested for Ukraine is to replenish U.S. weapons and ammunition already given away, Biden provides no guarantee that the new stockpiles also won’t be transferred to Ukraine.
U.S. munitions stockpiles are low and the U.S. defense industrial base is woefully unprepared for a conflict in the Indo-Pacific. Biden’s supplemental budget request asks for 20 times as much money for Ukraine as it does for needed investments in shipbuilding to deter our top adversary: China.
4. Feeding the Border Crisis
Biden is doubling down on his border crisis by asking for more money to keep America’s southwest border wide open.
The president’s $13.6 billion request includes funding for additional Customs and Border Protection officers to process more illegal aliens quickly into the U.S. and buy more plane and bus tickets to move illegal aliens to the nation’s interior faster.
Biden’s request would fund more federal bureaucrats to hand out work permits faster. It would cut travel time and costs for people not authorized to come to America by paying to fly illegal immigrants directly in rather than having to walk to the border.
We just learned that Customs and Border Protection encountered over 2.4 million inadmissible aliens at the southern border in fiscal year 2023, which ended Sept. 30. The funding sought by Biden’s request would make the border crisis worse.
5. Impact on American Families
The $106 billion in extra funding sought by Biden would cost every family of four in America over $1,000, on top of what these households already pay in taxes.
The U.S. is $33 trillion in total debt and ran a $1.7 trillion budget deficit last year, so American families would pay back Biden’s supplemental funding request with skyrocketing interest for decades to come.
Biden’s request also makes no mention of any offsets or efforts to prioritize the emergency funding he says is vital to U.S. interests.
The president regularly says that his budget requests reflect what he values. From this one, we see that Biden values government employees in Ukraine and illegal aliens a lot, Israel and our allies in the Indo-Pacific a little, and American workers and families suffering from inflation and illegal immigration not much at all.
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