Senators Doubt US Economy Will Benefit From 'Support Ukraine' Bill

US President Joe Biden has signed into law a $95 billion “Support Ukraine” bill, hours after it was resoundingly approved by the Senate in a 79-18 vote. Will the US economy benefit from it? Even the dissenting senators know for sure: the real winners should be looked for elsewhere.

Here are the main arguments against the Ukraine bill voiced by the US senators themselves.

The first argument is that the bill will not lead to Ukraine’s victory or Israel’s security, and that as such the US will not achieve any of its foreign policy goals by adding the expense to its already huge debt.

“Ukraine’s challenge is not the G.O.P.; it’s math,” Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times on the eve of the vote. “Ukraine needs more soldiers than it can field, even with draconian conscription policies. And it needs more war matériel than the United States can provide. This reality must inform any future Ukraine policy, from further congressional aid to the diplomatic course set by the president.”

Thomas Tuberville, Republican senator from Alabama, was even more outspoken during the debate in the Senate: ”I can’t believe that the Republican leadership sold out the country and that the House signed a bill that sends $95 billion to other countries … It undermines our interests abroad and paves our nation’s path to bankruptcy … This is on top of the $120 billion that we already sent to that black hole without accountability [named Ukraine]. And we are a country that is $35 trillion in debt!”

The second argument against the bill is procedural.

The bill was forced through the senate without due discussion, with some arguments in favor being obvious lies. For example, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) claimed that “Ukraine has taken back about half of the territory Russia took in 2022,” and that in this situation giving Ukraine $60 billion in all kinds of aid would be a typical “peace through strength” act.

A mere look at the map and a simple calculation are enough to see that this is simply not true, and that in Vance's words, Ukraine “has no chance of winning.”

“This $60 billion is a fraction of what it would take to turn the tide in Ukraine’s favor,” Vance wrote in the NYT. “Take the munitions. The United States has gone to great lengths to ramp up production of 155-millimeter shells. We’ve roughly doubled our capacity and can now produce 360,000 per year — less than a tenth of what Ukraine says it needs. The administration’s goal is to get this to 1.2 million — 30 percent of what’s needed — by the end of 2025.”

Senators Mike Lee (R-UT) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT) decried the fact that they were initially forced to vote on the bill “in a package,” without presenting amendments and separating good and bad points.

Sanders said he did not want to “finance [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s war machine” with billions of taxpayer money after Netanyahu “killed more than 34,000 Palestinians and wounded 77,000 others, with 70% of the casualties being women and children.”

Israel is now set to get $26.4 billion, since senators have approved expenditures on both military and civilian projects.

The third argument against the ‘Ukraine bill’ is the lack of accountability.

Sen. Mike Lee complained about the lack of oversight, reminding his colleagues how previously earmarked funds vanished in Ukraine. The Utah senator criticized the package’s proponents for defeating an effort led by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) to increase accountability and oversight of the aid – by at least appointing an inspector general.

“These are not choir boys,” Lee said about Ukrainian officials. “These are not Boy Scouts. These are not Girl Scouts. These are people who have really set world records for corruption. It’s an art form over there.”

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) further noted the Biden administration just can’t seem to get its priorities straight:

“Instead of debating the legislation to close our borders and fix the economy, we are about to send money to one of the most corrupt countries in the world,” Tuberville said, urging his fellow senators “not to be fooled” by the usage of the word “loan,” which both Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson used to sell the bill.

“This so-called loan to Ukraine will never be repaid,” he stated. “And not one dollar from this bill will be paid, we’ll have to print it or borrow from China.”

In the long run, financed by deficit spending, the bill will benefit the “arms giants” and prolong the conflict, Tuberville said.

Indeed, the military-industrial complex of the US is benefitting handsomely now, and it has all the reasons to welcome the $60 billion worth Ukrainian bill, $23.2 billion from which will be spent on replenishing Pentagon stocks, $13.8 billion on purchasing weapons for Ukraine and $11.3 billion on financing “US military activity in the region.”

The Nation reported that America’s biggest military contractor, Lockheed Martin, paid its CEO John Taiclet $22.8 million in 2023. The salaries of the CEOs of Northrop Grumman, RTX and Boeing ranged from $14.5 million to $22.5 million.

So, these people are doing well and can be expected to profit from the new bill, too. But, can they be called “the US economy?” Aren’t the bill’s proponents confusing them with “average Americans”?