House Republicans on Wednesday released their proposals to fund a massive influx of military aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, more than six months after President Joe Biden initially submitted his emergency foreign assistance request to Congress.
The roughly $95 billion package is split into three separate bills, but nevertheless it closely mirrors the foreign aid bill the Senate passed 70-29 in February. The House is scheduled to vote on the three bills on Saturday, punting it back to the Senate for another round of votes in the upper chamber.
“Dangers are ever-escalating with tyrannical aggression threatening the free world.” House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said in a statement. “Russia is invading a sovereign neighbor and China is challenging partners in its region. On top of that, we have an all-out conflict in the Middle East where one of our closet allies is under constant attack.”
“I know this to be true: If we don’t help our friends in time of need, soon enough, we won’t have any friends at all. The time is now to act.”
A growing faction of the Republican caucus has become increasingly skeptical of additional aid for Kyiv amid opposition from former President Donald Trump, demanding separate votes on Ukraine and Israel assistance. This prompted House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to split the package up into several different votes.
But the maneuver was not enough to appease the most vocal Ukraine aid opponents in the House Republican caucus, with Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., threatening to oust Johnson from the speakership over the vote. A small band of right-wing Republicans ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in October, plunging the House into weeks of chaos as the party struggled to select a new leader.
Heritage Action, the lobbying arm of the influential conservative think tank, also opposes Ukraine aid and is lobbying against the package. It argued in a Wednesday memo that “any effort to combine the measures before sending them to the Senate undermines the intent to consider the bills on their own merits.”
The supplemental spending package includes $60 billion in security and economic aid for Ukraine, $14 billion in Israel military aid and $4 billion in weapons funding for Taiwan.
The package would unlock funds the Pentagon needs to continue arming Kyiv with $23.2 billion to replenish weapons sent from U.S. stocks and another $13.8 billion to procure advanced equipment through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.
Ukraine in recent months has found itself dangerously low on air defenses, artillery and ammunition needed to thwart Russia’s invasion. Congress has provided a cumulative $113 billion in economic and military support for Ukraine since Russia’s invasion, but the last package it passed was in December 2022.
Gen. CQ Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, warned defense appropriators in the House on Wednesday that Ukraine could lose its “hard fought gains” without U.S. support.
“The supplemental does three things,” said Brown. “One it supports Ukraine’s ability to defend itself. It puts money into our defense industrial base, not just for Ukraine but for many of our allies and partners because U.S. equipment is valued around the world. And last it shows U.S. leadership.”
The House package also aids a provision directing Biden to transfer long-range Army Tactical Missile Systems to Ukraine – a longstanding priority of pro-Ukraine Republicans like Armed Services Chairman Mike Rogers of Alabama. The Biden administrations transferred medium-range versions of the missile in October, but the longer-range system would allow Ukraine to strike into Russia-occupied Crimea.
The Middle East and Indo-Pacific
Additionally, the package includes $4.4 billion to replenish the tens of thousands air-to-ground munitions and artillery shells Israel has dropped in Gaza over the last six months and another $4 billion to replenish the Iron Dome and David’s Sling air defense systems. In addition to the supplemental, Israel receives an annual $3.8 billion per year in U.S. military aid.
“The most important thing that we can do right now is pass a supplemental that will provide us the opportunity to continue to provide security assistance to Israel in the form of air defense inceptors, munitions and things that it critically needs to defend itself,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told the House on Wednesday.
Another $1.9 billion in the package would unlock replenishment funds to arm Taiwan, allowing the Pentagon to rush weapons to the island by drawing down from U.S. stocks the same way it has for Ukraine. Congress passed $300 million in Foreign Military Financing for Taiwan in March as part of the FY24 State Department spending bill. The House bill would give Taiwan an additional $2 billion in Foreign Military Financing as well.
The package also includes $3.3 billion in submarine industrial base funding as the Columbia and Virginia class programs remain behind schedule. Additionally, it provides $2.4 billion for U.S. Central Command to support its operations in the Middle East and another $542 million for U.S. Indo-Pacific Command.
Pentagon comptroller Mike McCord on Wednesday told the House that without the legislation, the Defense Department would have to “reprogram funds” from facilities and equipment maintenance accounts.
“We’ve surged forces in Europe the entire fiscal year to date, maybe in particular in [Central Command] the same way,” said McCord. “We have incurred over $2 billion in operational costs that, if we can’t get the supplemental, will have to be absorbed in the base budget.”
Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro told the Senate Tuesday that the service is “approaching $1 billion in munitions” expenditures replenishment expenditures as a result of its Red Sea operations to counter attacks from Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis.
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