Rand’s Rant

I very rarely cite The American Conservative but I thought Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul’s piece there, “The Federal Government Should Not Be Held Hostage for Ukraine Funding” worthy of comment. What follows is something between a fisking and a commentary. Sen. Paul opens:

Today I am putting leadership of the House, the Senate, and the President of the United States on notice. I will not consent to the expedited passage of any spending measure providing more American aid to Ukraine.

Continuing he writes:

Simply put: We have no extra money to send to Ukraine. Our deficit this year will exceed $1.5 trillion. Borrowing money from China to send to Ukraine makes no sense.

The federal government has three ways of obtaining the dollars it spends: taxation, borrowing, and extending credit to itself. “Taxation” includes both taxes and fees; the mechanism for extending credit is that the Federal Reserve purchases U. S. Treasury bonds which it is required to do by law. Here’s a breakdown of federal debt:

Here’s a scoresheet of Chinese ownership of U. S. federal debt:

Said another way China has not increased its holding of U. S. Treasuries for some time. Sen. Paul is incorrect. We aren’t borrowing from China. We finance most of the deficit by extending credit to ourselves.

Continuing:

Since the beginning of Russia’s war in Ukraine, the American taxpayer has provided Kiev $113 billion. Over the 583 days of war between February 24, 2022 and the end of this month, that average will come to $6.8 billion per month—or $223 million per day.

Some of that is supporting Ukraine’s war effort directly; some is humanitarian aid; some is supporting the Ukrainian government—that’s the largest chunk, I believe. Some of our direct support of the war effort has actually been subsidization of U. S. munitions companies.

Next:

This week, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is in Washington to lobby Congress to approve the Biden administration’s $24 billion supplemental aid request.

When will the aid requests end? When will the war end? Can someone explain what victory in Ukraine looks like? President Biden certainly can’t. His administration has failed to articulate a clear strategy or objective in this war, and Ukraine’s long-awaited counter-offensive has failed to make meaningful gains in the east.

“What victory looks like” has actually been explained pretty clearly—at this point we are supporting Ukraine’s stated objectives which are

1. Return of all of the territory that was Ukraine’s prior to 2014 including Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk.
2. NATO membership for Ukraine and the unstated objective
3. Weakening Russia

I don’t believe Sen. Paul’s criticism is fair. You may disagree with those objectives but I think they’re pretty clear. My own view is that I do not believe that the first objective can be accomplished by anything short of direct U. S. involvement in the war which is likely to result in a nuclear exchange.

With no clear end in sight, it looks increasingly likely that Ukraine will be yet another endless quagmire funded by the American taxpayer. That’s why public support for the war is waning. A CNN poll from August shows that a majority of Americans now oppose Congress authorizing additional funding to Ukraine.

I think that’s a fair criticism.

The Senate leadership of both parties know this. That’s why they are trying to hold the federal government hostage by inserting the $24 billion aid request in a continuing resolution: to force our hand. Either we fund an endless war in Ukraine or the uniparty will shut down the federal government and make the American people suffer.

I am shocked, shocked to find political machinations going on in Washington!

This is a clear dereliction of duty, and I will not stand for it. My colleagues: As representatives of the American people, you should not stand for it. The bill that comes before us should be about funding our own government, not anyone else’s. I will do everything in my power to block a bill that includes funding for Ukraine.

I don’t think it’s dereliction of duty; I think it’s a disagreement on policy.

If that’s not bad enough, Senate leadership has prevented the implementation of effective oversight mechanisms to ensure that hard-earned American tax dollars don’t fall prey to waste, fraud, and abuse. As a result, besides the colossal costs of the war, we will end up paying a corruption tax.

Unfortunately, corruption runs deep in Ukraine, and there’s plenty of evidence that it has run rampant since Russia’s invasion. As Zelensky landed in New York earlier this week, we learned that corruption concerns in Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense resulted in the firing of six deputy defense ministers. This comes two weeks after the firing of Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, who was removed after it was discovered that the Ministry of Defense had mishandled military contracts.

Last month, Zelensky fired all twenty-four regional military recruitment chiefs because they were “involved in illegal activities, including enrichment.”

Last October, we learned that U.S. shipments of grenade launchers, machine guns, rifles, bulletproof vests, and thousands of rounds of ammunition, were ending up in the hands of criminal gangs and weapons traffickers posing as humanitarian aid organizations.

I have been complaining about this myself for more than a year. Unfortunately, I believe that the only way to address it is risky—American civilian “boots on the ground”. Strict in-person oversight. If the Ukrainians won’t stand for that we shouldn’t support them. Even that is no guarantee but it’s better than just hoping for the best which appears to be present policy.

He concludes:

What are we doing? Is this fair to the American people? Millions of Americans are struggling each day to make ends meet. Millions of Americans are struggling to provide for their families and put food on the table. Can we honestly look our constituents in the eye and tell them that this is a good investment of their tax dollars?

Increasingly, especially as election day nears, that will be the critical issue not just on support for Ukraine but on controlling our southern border. The money we are spending on Ukraine and on “asylum-seekers” is not spent on domestic needs.

I would be remiss if I did not mention the number of times that Sen. Paul has voted for tax decreases. Budget items in excess of taxation are not limited to support for Ukraine. Put simply the amount we are being taxed does not cover the main budget items (defense, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, interest on the debt). If taxes do not increase, we must “borrow”. Simple as that. What does Sen. Paul have in mind?