American Funding to Ukraine Reaches $100 Billion As Domestic Issues Are Ignored

What’s happening: Congress’s omnibus spending bill would allocate nearly $50 billion in funding to Ukraine. Once approved, the U.S. would have sent over $100 billion in taxpayer dollars to Ukraine in a de facto proxy war against Russia. For perspective, Russia’s yearly military budget is $65 billion.

What about the border crisis? Critics of the extravagant Ukraine spending point to the GOP’s failure to allocate $5 billion to build a wall at the southern border, a project that was ultimately left unfinished amid a record-breaking border crisis that will only get worse as Title 42 expires.

To bring the focus back to domestic issues, Sen. Mike Lee (R) proposed an amendment in the spending bill to keep Title 42 in place, which would allow the federal government to continue refusing illegal migrants entry into the country. The spending bill is now stalled because of it.

What about Americans’ health care? Citing bloated Medicaid enrollment and costs, the new spending bill will remove a pandemic-era requirement that prevented states from booting people off Medicaid. Millions will lose health care coverage as a result. Although public health care is a partisan issue, Congress's willingness to fund abroad while ignoring issues at home reveals current priorities.