McCarthy: It Is 'Wrong' to Add $6.2Bln For Ukraine Aid To US Spending Bill
08:40 GMT 27.09.2023 (Updated: 17:42 GMT 29.09.2023)
© AFP 2023 / BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI
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As US Lawmakers race against time to fund the government past the 30 September deadline, each chamber came up with its own plan on how to avert the looming shutdown. The Democrat-controlled Senate has its own Continuing Resolution (CR) on Tuesday to keep the government funded until 17 November.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), is convinced it is "wrong" to include Ukrainian aid worth billions of dollars in a short-term funding bill to avert a government shutdown.
"They're picking Ukraine over Americans," the Republican told reporters.
McCarthy slammed the bipartisan government funding measure advanced by lawmakers in the Democrat-controlled Senate on Tuesday, saying:
"If they want to put focus on Ukraine and not focus on the southern border, I think their priorities are backwards."
The legislation, dubbed the Continuing Appropriations Act, would fund the federal government until 17 November to give lawmakers more time to pass full spending bills. The Continuing Resolution (CR) includes more than $6Bln in military and economic assistance for Ukraine. It was passed by 77 votes to 19 in the upper chamber.
The $6.2Bln allocated to Ukraine is a stepdown from the additional $24Bln Kiev funding that US President Joe Biden had asked Congress to agree to in August. Another $6Bln is allocated to natural disaster funding. The stopgap measure advanced by the Senate fails to include any additional funding for border security, unlike the House's version.
In August, President Joe Biden asked Congress to approve a supplemental funding request of more than $24Bln for Ukraine. The request includes more than $13Bln in security assistance, and $7.3Bln for economic and humanitarian assistance for Kiev.
26 September 2023, 23:57 GMT
On Tuesday, McCarthy stopped short of saying whether the Senate-passed bill would be brought up for a vote, but told reporters he would put the House's short-term spending bill, including funds for border security, on the floor by Saturday.
"I think that's the appropriate way to be able to keep government funding, secure our border, while we continue to keep the government open to work on the rest of the appropriations process," said McCarthy.
McCarthy also indicated that the House measure would also offer a lower spending level than present funding, in other words, below the $1.59 trillion agreed upon during the debt ceiling row back in May.
The US government has been hurtling towards a government shutdown as lawmakers on Capitol Hill have been struggling to reach a deal on a spending budget by the end of the month.
A group of Republicans in both the US House of Representatives and Senate have been promising to block any spending bill unless their demands are met, including removing any additional funding to Ukraine from the bills. Representatives Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Marjorie Taylor-Greene (R-GA) in the House, along with several Republican lawmakers in the upper chamber, such as Senators Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Rand Paul (R-KY), have been adamant that they would block any attempt to fast-track bills that incorporate additional Ukraine aid with Senator Paul going so far as to warn on X (formerly Twitter):
"I will oppose any effort to hold the federal government hostage for Ukraine funding, I will not consent to expedited passage of any spending measure that provides any more US aid to Ukraine."
Twenty-nine lawmakers, including Paul, had earlier signed a letter demanding more transparency about how much is being spent in Ukraine.
"[The Biden administration's request implies] an open-ended commitment to supporting the war in Ukraine of an indeterminate nature, based on a strategy that is unclear, to achieve a goal yet to be articulated to the public or the Congress," the letter read. It added that until their concerns are met the lawmakers will "oppose" additional expenditures to support the Kiev regime.
26 September 2023, 06:29 GMT
The day before, National Security Council spokesman John Kirby warned in an interview with US media that the US may run out of money to bankroll the Kiev regime "in a few weeks".
Unless a stop-gap budget bill incorporating additional funding that the Biden administration has requested is passed, Washington’s ability to support Ukraine will be impacted, Kirby said.
"We’ve got a little bit more funding to go, so I think we’ll be okay for the next few weeks or so. But without the supplemental request that we asked for, it will absolutely have an effect on our ability to support Ukraine well into the autumn and into the winter months... Not getting that supplemental request if there’s a shutdown – that’s going to have a significant impact on their ability to succeed on the battlefield,” Kirby announced in the Situation Room.
A partial shutdown would begin at 23.59 EST (18.59 GMT), on 30 September. It would suspend "nonessential" government operations until Congress passes a measure to restore funding. This would mean millions of federal workers going without pay including more than 1.3 million troops on active duty, according to the White House. The most recent government shutdown lasted a record 35 days, from late 2018 to early 2019.
