White House Warns Congress about Aid for Ukraine

(NewsInsights.org) – As Ukraine nears the two-year mark in its war against Russian aggression, the US Congress is considering a funding package to assist the nation in its fight. Yet, Congress members remain split along party lines concerning the investment of several billion more dollars when unresolved border issues at home are causing problems. On December 4, Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget, wrote letters to the top four Congressional leaders, warning them that the US had nearly exhausted “money to support Ukraine in this fight.”

Addressing her correspondence to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Young thanked Congress for the resources it had provided to Ukraine this far and explained that approximately 60% of the $111 billion provided to date, $67 billion, had gone primarily to the revitalization of the American Defense Industrial Base (DIB).

Yet, she couched her more urgent emphasis on the fact that the Department of Defense (DOD) had spent 97% of the $62.3 billion allocation it received and would run out of funding by the end of the year. Similarly, the State Department used 100% of its $4.7 billion budget for military assistance, while State and USAID used 100% of their $27.2 billion allocation for economic aid and civilian security projects. State and USAID also received and used $10 billion in emergency funding for humanitarian assistance for those displaced by the war or those facing food hardships resulting from the war.

Young told the leaders that President Joe Biden’s supplemental package request for $106 billion, submitted to lawmakers in October, would put an additional $50 billion into the US DIB, essentially recirculating the money back into the economy as jobs and economic growth for defense companies. But perhaps more importantly, she stressed that Ukraine’s defense efforts could collapse without US assistance, and barring an affirmative Congressional vote to authorize another supplemental package, the US had no more money to give.