Joe Biden is facing numerous crises with wars in Ukraine and Gaza, plus an invasion of illegal aliens at the Southern border. Some of this is his own making, But putting aside who’s at fault for these emergencies, the federal government has to address the problems lest they spiral out of control and lead to wider wars and a humanitarian catastrophe on our borders.
Biden will tackle all three crises at once, proposing as much as $100 billion to aid Ukraine in its war against Russia, Israel in its war against Hamas, and a more serious attempt to lock down the border.
The most problematic aid package will be military and economic assistance to Ukraine, which has already received $85 billion. Biden figures that if he can sweeten the package to include the strongly bipartisan effort to assist Israel with the substantial spending on border security, more Republicans will support the entire funding package.
Earlier this month, some Democrats and Republicans floated a trial balloon that would have combined border security with Ukraine aid. House conservatives shot that idea down, but throwing in the immensely popular aid to Israel could tip the scales in Biden’s favor.
The biggest obstacle might be the amount of the aid package. The $100 billion would fund Ukraine, Israel, and border security for the entire fiscal year. That might be a non-starter since Congress won’t take up a bill to fund the government for the rest of the year until next month at the earliest. Israel needs that money and those weapons now.
A person familiar with the administration’s effort to coordinate the request said that details of the package were still being worked out and stressed that the amount would cover an entire fiscal year. The previous request from the White House — which included $24 billion in Ukraine assistance — covered only a three-month period.
Any request from the White House, though, will need to wait for House lawmakers to elect a new speaker after the ouster of Kevin McCarthy from the post. Any spending measure would need to be taken up by the House first but the chamber is unable to complete any legislative business until Republicans coalesce behind a new speaker.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is telling Biden not to play games with money for border security.
“The border part of it needs to be credible, not just some reference to it but a credible deal,” he told reporters.
Indeed, Biden’s credibility on border issues is negligible. Republicans are going to have to hold Biden’s feet to the fire to make sure he comes through with his promises.
Biden is going to send the package to the House by the end of the week. It’s hoped that by then, Republicans will have a speaker along with the ability to start working on a serious aid package to address the various crises bedeviling the world.
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