In March, Congress appropriated $13.6 billion in emergency aid for Ukraine.
As recently as mid-March, the Biden administration was touting smaller package of aid to Ukraine, a “mere” $800 million in drones, anti-tank missiles, and Javelin anti-tank and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. By April, Biden asked Congress for a $33 billion supplemental funding bill aimed at supporting Ukraine over the next several months, a figure that surprised some observers. Now the House has passed a $40 billion bill that the Senate is likely to pass in the not too distant future. (The current version of the bill includes roughly $9 billion to help restock U.S. equipment that has been sent to Ukraine.)
Defense experts can debate the right kind of weapons to send to Ukraine, and considering the relentless bombardment of Ukrainian cities, they can probably use all the humanitarian help they can get.
But there’s no getting around the fact that this is a big bill — about ten percent of what the Pentagon paid all defense contractors in 2021. And because additional U.S. military and humanitarian aid to Ukraine is one of the rare areas of bipartisan agreement — the House version of the bill passed, 368 to 57 — you have to wonder if the Biden administration, desperate for wins, chose to go big. If you can’t get much else passed in a 50-50 Senate, you might as well pour all of your ambitions — and all of your spending — in the few proposals that will get some GOP support. Between inflation, gas prices, food prices, supply chain issues, the border, and everything else, the midterm environment is about as bad as it can get for Biden and the Democrats. “We helped Ukraine push back Russia’s invasion” might be one of the few accomplishments Biden will be able to cite on the campaign trail.