The White House on Monday sounded the alarm that it will run out of money to provide weapons to Ukraine in its fight against Russia without congressional action by the end of the year.
In a letter to congressional leaders, Office of Management and Budget director Shalanda Young wrote the government is “out of money—and nearly out of time” to continue giving aid to Ukraine. The White House pleaded with Congress to act on a supplemental funding request first submitted in October, arguing it is of critical importance to U.S. national security.
“I want to be clear: without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from U.S. military stocks. There is no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment. We are out of money—and nearly out of time,” Young wrote.
Yeah that’s what I’m saying, it’s a pretext. Initially we wanted to pretend we weren’t giving aid to the allies in WWII. Though it’d be inaccurate to say it never hits the books. Portions of it were repaid after WWII. You’d still need another act to forgive that debt though, as far as I’m aware there’s no provision in the law for the president to unilaterally forgive the debt. So you’d have to ask congress, and be right back where you started. And why go through all the hoops? Just allot the aid instead of hurting Ukraine’s credit for no reason for a while if you’re planning on eventually forgiving it. It’d still be nice to have the option to kind of paper over any funding gaps like what’s happening right now, shame that now is when it’s expired otherwise they could be using it as a stop gap. But I suspect that’s why the Republicans chose now.