The congressional opposition to the president’s funding request explained—as far as it can be
“We’re not going to negotiate in the pages of The Atlantic.”
That was the response I got from a congressional staffer when I pressed for some details, any details, on what really separated Democrats from Republicans on aid to Ukraine.
For two years, the Ukrainians have fought heroically to defend their country against Russia’s invasion. The United States and other allies have funded that defense. But Russia has not given up, and past rounds of U.S. aid are nearly exhausted. For Ukraine to keep fighting, it urgently needs more aid.
The Biden administration has sent Congress a request for $61 billion in new funds for Ukraine and $14 billion to help Israel defend itself against Hamas and Hezbollah. The package also includes humanitarian assistance to people displaced by the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as assistance to Indo-Pacific allies, and $14 billion for border security (for a total of $111 billion).
Republicans in the House and Senate are resisting this request. The ostensible reason is that they want more radical action on the border than the Biden administration has offered. The whole aid package is now stalled, with potentially catastrophic consequences for Ukraine. Ukrainian units are literally running out of ammunition. If supplies of military equipment are interrupted, restarting them will take a while, which means that Ukraine could be left unaided over the winter unless Congress acts in time. And with both the House and the Senate scheduled to go into recess at the end of this week for their Christmas break, very little time remains in which to act.
How is any of this happening? On past evidence, a clear majority of Senate Republicans sincerely want to help Ukraine. Probably about half of House Republicans do too. In a pair of procedural test votes in September, measures to cut or block aid to Ukraine drew, respectively, 104 and 117 Republican votes of the 221 then in the caucus.
The offer that President Joe Biden is making regarding the border represents a meaningful opening bid. The fundamental reason for America’s present border crisis is that would-be immigrants are trying to game the asylum system. The system is overwhelmed by the numbers claiming asylum. Even though the great majority of those claims will ultimately be rejected, their processing takes years, sometimes decades. In the meantime, most asylum seekers will be released into the United States. This makes claiming asylum a rational bet for would-be immigrants to try their luck, and millions of people are doing just that.
