OPINION:
President Biden, Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, and a handful of left-leaning Republicans (led by Mitt Romney, of course) have just agreed to a nearly $100 billion foreign aid bill for Israel and Ukraine.
Is the spending addiction so severe that there is nothing Congress will not spend and borrow money for?
Not a penny of this aid package is paid for with offsetting spending cuts from a nearly $6 trillion budget. Former President Donald Trump has sensibly suggested that the foreign aid funds — if any — should be in the form of a loan to be paid back by the recipient countries over time. The Democrats wouldn’t go for that.
The Democrats and the White House have even resisted audits of where the first tranches of money to Ukraine have gone — which naturally makes us suspicious.
We’ve argued from day one that, by far, the single most effective way to stop the Russian war machine is to drill and drill and drill for oil and natural gas here at home to drive down the price of oil worldwide. Both the aggressions by Vladimir Putin and the Hamas terrorists were aided and abetted by Mr. Biden’s insane war on domestic energy production. Is it a coincidence that Mr. Putin moved Russian troops and tanks into Ukraine after Mr. Biden entered the Oval Office? Both of these warriors are funded with petrodollars.
Where in this bipartisan agreement for more drilling and more pipelines? Mr. Biden called for taxpayers to make a sacrifice and do “our duty” to defend our allies, but the one thing he won’t sacrifice is his green agenda.
I know that Americans of goodwill have very different opinions on the wisdom of intervening in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. But what we all should agree on is that the greatest threat to American economic and national security is out-of-control government debt spending, which will soon exceed $35 trillion. This bill adds $1,200 per household to our debt, as calculated by The Heritage Foundation. And just the interest payments on the added borrowing will add billions more to the river of red ink.
When challenged on his reckless financial policies, Mr. Biden blames Mr. Trump and “Republican tax cuts,” but that still doesn’t weigh out.
Neither was tightfisted when it came to controlling spending, but Mr. Biden’s annual deficits per year were $1.5 trillion — twice as high as Mr. Trump’s $750 billion. And these dismal numbers don’t even include the $100 billion this foreign aid bill adds to the national credit card.
If spending more on Israel and Ukraine is such a vital priority for the United States, surely we could cut a mere 2 cents out of the dollar from every other program to pay for it.
• Stephen Moore is a senior fellow at FreedomWorks and co-founder of the Committee to Unleash Prosperity.
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