Twenty-eight Republicans publicly vowed on Thursday to oppose the use of billions of American tax dollars to fund a proxy war in Ukraine.
The rejection, sent in a letter to Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, is a direct response to the Biden administration’s recent demand that Congress send $24 billion more in American taxpayer-funded resources to Volodymyr Zelensky in an attempt to curb Vladimir Putin and his regime.
Sen. J.D. Vance, who spearheaded the letter, said Congress should not keep funding “an indefinite conflict” without more fact-based information about the war.
“Yesterday at a classified briefing over Ukraine, it became clear that America is being asked to fund an indefinite conflict with unlimited resources,” Vance wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Enough is enough. To these and future requests, my colleagues and I say: NO.”
More than half of the nation says Congress should stop financing Ukraine, a country plagued by corruption. Yet, President Joe Biden, his cabinet members, and even establishment Republicans like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell have repeatedly pledged to support the war “for as long as it takes.”
Retiring Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley reportedly received a “standing ovation” on Wednesday after he also swore that “the United States will continue to provide support to Ukraine for as long as it takes.”
“My tenure may be ending but the mission for this group continues until the end state of a free and sovereign Ukraine is attained,” Milley said.
“These statements imply an open-ended commitment to supporting the war in Ukraine of an indeterminate nature, based on a strategy that is unclear, to achieve a goal yet to be articulated to the public or the Congress,” the signees wrote.
The statements also lack any transparency about how the nation’s previous aid was used.
In their letter, the Republicans note the whopping $114 billion total often used to measure U.S. funding for Ukraine “does not reflect the full picture, which includes transferred and reprogrammed funds.” They add that in all five of its “supplemental requests” for Ukraine funding to Congress, the Biden administration “requested additional authority to transfer and reprogram funds.”
“The vast majority of Congress remains unaware of how much the United States has spent to date in total on this conflict, information which is necessary for Congress to prudently exercise its appropriations power,” the Republicans warn.
The ignorance is not due to a lack of curiosity from the Republicans behind the letter, who have made multiple inquiries over the last two years demanding more information. In January, Vance and three dozen other Republicans in Congress signed a letter to Young demanding a “full accounting” of U.S. aid to Ukraine. Their requests went largely unaddressed.
“It is difficult to envision a benign explanation for this lack of clarity,” the Republicans state.
As prime examples of the executive branch’s reckless Ukraine spending spree, the GOPers highlighted the Department of Defense’s recent $6.2 billion Ukraine aid accounting error and the Biden administration’s $5 billion request for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, a number which exceeded 15 times what Congress allotted in the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act.
“The American people deserve to know what their money has gone to. How is the counteroffensive going? Are the Ukrainians any closer to victory than they were 6 months ago? What is our strategy, and what is the president’s exit plan? What does the administration define
as victory in Ukraine?” the GOPers ask.
To grant another round of Ukraine funding requests by the Biden administration without “answers to these questions,” the GOP members declared, would be “an absurd abdication of congressional responsibility.”
The 28 Republicans pledge to keep their purse strings closed until the Biden administration explains its funding frenzy to Congress and taxpayers.
