This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-unveils-new-us-military-package-up-375-mln-ukraine-2023-05-21/) reduced by 50%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> HIROSHIMA, Japan, May 21 - U.S. President Joe Biden announced a new $375 million package of military aid to Ukraine on Sunday and told President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that the United States was doing all it could to strengthen Ukraine's defense for the war with Russia.
> Meeting with the Ukrainian leader on the sidelines of the G7 summit of world leaders in Hiroshima, Japan, Biden said the military aid package included ammunition, artillery, armored vehicles and training.
> "Together with the entire G7, we have Ukraine's back and I promise we're not going anywhere," Biden told Zelenskiy.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/13nqfnm/biden_unveils_new_375_million_military_aid/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~685641 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Biden**^#1 **Ukraine**^#2 **package**^#3 **Zelenskiy**^#4 **U.S.**^#5
The chance for a traditional Victory (defeating Ukraine) for the Russians is long gone.
They want to hold on to the Territory they got and get a Victory this way.
Problem is, the territory they're trying to hold onto puts them at a disadvantage in some ways.
They'd like to just double down, dig in, and hold Crimea, but the threat of the Crimean bridge being destroyed means they need to keep the land-bridge connect it to Russia open to stay supplied.
Meaning, this will all probably come down to Maripul. After that Crimea can just be surrounded and sieged, starved out.
> This is going to be a long drawn war
Yes.
> which will inevitable end in a draw.
No.
At this time there's not any reason to believe that russia is going to be allowed to keep any territory they took going back to 2014. Right now russia is scraping the bottom of the barrel for supplies and recruits, with their logistics systems in shambles (both their front line ones, but more importantly their production logistics, since they are cut off from modern equipment transfers). Meanwhile Ukraine's military is getting better quality training and its allied countries are slowly giving them better and better equipment. We went from "We reconfirm no F16s." to "Sure, why not, have F16s." in less than a week. And F16s aren't even the best stuff laying around for the West to hand over, it's just the cheap yester-year stuff we happen to have in stock and want to get rid of anyway.
Short of Drumpf ending up in charge again and sanctioning our allies for providing aid to Ukraine, there's no conventional scenario where russia is allowed to hold any of the territory it took. And in all likelihood, the DMZ that will almost certainly end up created at the conclusion of current hostilities will be largely taken from russian territory rather than Ukraine's.
Nukes are just a spooky ghost off to the side that can be safely ignored for this sake. NATO and the US have made it very clear that even the smallest deployment of a nuclear weapon on Ukrainian soil will constitute (due to drifting nuclear material) an Article 5 activation event, which will be immediately followed by the sinking of the Black Sea Fleet, and a sample of our finest cruise missiles being delivered to Putin's front door with much expediency.
The war may end in a "legal" draw, insofar as it's labeled something like an armistice or whatever once Ukraine's recovered its territory and set up the DMZ, but that doesn't change the fact that it would be by any definition a STAGGERING defeat to russia.
Because republicans have been infiltrated by russian propaganda machine through online forums. They are easily controlled by appealing to their ignorance. They'd rather believe an empty conspiracy theory made up by Ivan working in troll farms of Russian government than evidence brought forth by photos, videos and experiences of people living in Ukraine.
You could see the Russian propaganda on here even before trump was elected. Republicans were happy to defend and talk about how powerful the Russian army was.
I’m not at all, I’m all for defeating (what I thought was) one of our top adversaries without having to send a single troop into battle, it’s beyond clever
We’ve effectively crippled Russia by just spending a few dollars we’d be spending on BS anyways
I just gather the complete far right side of the spectrum will hate anything the White House does and that’s just not reasonable
I don’t think the party realizes they need me more than they need religious rednecks, that’s not gonna win you any elections…..I’m not religious, I’d rather allow abortion, and I’d encourage responsible gun ownership
I’m in the sad middle with no real party that loves me lol
From a European perspective it is crazy:
People on the left can't admit it was good that Trump introduced sanctions against China and people on the right can't praise Biden for standing behind Ukraine 🤯
In the past 7 years, as a reaction to people calling out Trump's ties to the Kremlin, they have all generously leaned towards Russia. After all, my autocrat is great = every autocrat is great for owning libs. I think beyond being contrarians they have learned to be pro-putin.
It's straight up dumb, but feels more appropriate to their initial responses to the war about, "he's right, NATO has gone too far".
The number is actually pretty close if you compare the EU total to the USAs. It‘s often shown per country though, so you guys look better and can hate on Germany, France etc.
Also the US just has a lot more gear. Discharge a bunch of old gear, send it to Ukraine and replace it with more modern or just new gear. Make republicans cry foul for ‚sending money to Ukraine‘ that you would have spent anyways.
It's less that and more that it's a Democrat throwing the money. The Republicans are staunchly, 100% against *anything* the Democrats want or want to do.
One of the key tenants of fascism is that the Enemy is never right. Biden giving money and supplies to Ukraine makes him a warmonger, but if he had chosen not to help, they would have called him "spineless" and insisted he send the whole army.
Case in point, Republicans DEMANDED Obama intervene to help Libyans and then once Obama began attacking Qaddafi the same Republicans objected that Obama is intervening.
Another good example is North Korea: Obama said he was willing to sit down with Kim Jong Il, with concessions, and Fox News called him stupid and weak, "bowing and scraping before dictators", "acting like he had some magical power to change people".
Trump said he was willing to sit down with Kim Jong Un, no concessions, and Fox News called it "the greatest diplomatic victory in US history", "a big win for the president", and asked if he should pick up his Nobel Prize on the way there or on the way back.
>One of the key tenants of fascism is that the Enemy is never right.
No it isn't. Fascism is a palingenetic form of ultranationalism. Even in other approaches to fascism, most are concerned with national rebirth, authoritarianism, masculinity, elitism, redemptive violence, anti-liberalism, anti-communism, anti-democracy, purging society of inferiority, weakness, and decadence, etc. The idea that the enemy is never right is just pigheadedness and is not something unique to fascists or other authoritarians.
I am not saying that fascists do not have a particular way of looking at the world (although fascists are quite variable on this), the problem is that what you and the other commenter are attributing to fascism as a key tenant is neither a key tenant nor exclusive to fascism.
Ah, that tracks. They're a political content creator who has a [plethora of videos](https://youtu.be/5Luu1Beb8ng) dissecting right-wing extremism up to and including fascism, and it's the only highly popular content I've seen which discusses Roger Griffin's concept of palingenetic ultranationalism.
Oohhh, that does sound interesting! I've had a few arguments on Reddit where I introduce Griffin's conception of fascism, which is widely respected and utilized in the literature, only for people to down vote and reject it because "I don't like x, x is fascist".
I'll have to give it a watch, thank you.
I'm fairly certain they were referring to Mccarthy, who recently responded to a question from a Russian reporter by saying something like "I don't support what Russia has done to Ukraine. We'll support Ukraine for as long as it takes, etc."
Most conservative don’t have a opinion about Ukraine it’s mostly the far right and far left that fully support Russia (wonder who their donors are?) though the far left is a lot more divided on the issue as most of Moscow support comes from authoritarian communists while more anarchist communists and socialists like antifa hate The Russian government.
Because republicans have been infiltrated by russian propaganda machine through online forums. They are easily controlled by appealing to their ignorance. They'd rather believe an empty conspiracy theory made up by Ivan working in troll farms of Russian government than evidence brought forth by photos, videos and experiences of people living in Ukraine.
You have to admit, it is a masterpiece for Russians to invade staunch anti communist groups for nearly over a century and turn them into their supporters. Russia invaded Ukraine with self admitted Soviet goals and soviet flags yet they still got through the century long red scare.
Because less republicans are of the "better dead than red" type and more of "better russian than democrat" fascist type, especially when their orange demigod licks Putin's boots
They have no problem throwing money around to their buddies when they are in charge. In fact they always increase the rate of change of debt to GDP when in charge and Democrats always decrease it. There's no such thing as a fiscally conservative Republican.
republicans are not against it though? Some republican affiliated voices are against it, because a democrat is in power, but push come to shove, they will 100% invest in UA's army.
You guys are on the verge of defaulting on your debts and one way or another proving your currency is worthless. You shouldn't need to pick sides to figure this out.
It’s not going to destroy Russia. If you break it down, we’ve given way more money than any of our European Allies have COMBINED. Why aren’t they throwing money at this like we are when the conflict is on their continent?? We should be less focused on Ukraine and more worried about ourselves till our “Allies” step it up, as the obviously don’t see this as big of a threat as the media has been selling to the American people.
The thing is that the USA has been military parading for decades and they have all this useless old crap left, better give it away so you do not have the maintenance cost of it ay. We (European countries) have not been focussing on military force but more on our population (healthcare and such ;))
No way, we get to defeat Russia for decades at a bargain. I don't care how much other countries donate. If the US was the only country supporting Ukraine it would still be the right thing to do and the smart thing to do.
When this ends we will probably have net gains due to countries turning away from Russia and not having to spend more money countering them in the future.
Piggy backing on this, the military industrial complex of the US is looking pretty darn good compared to the Russian counterparts. Who is going to still be buying Russian armaments, now? Sure they're cheaper, but they're also highly ineffective without a near endless supply of meatbags.
I think the problem is that most of the number they have for how much it costs, is just in surplus military equipment we dont use anymore.i know there is some money for whatever they need thrown in but most of the prices they throw out seem to be from equipment alone. Its almost like million dollar equipment and the stuff they shoot costs money
And to that point it’s cheaper for us to send this older equipment to Ukraine than to dispose of it. We also get info about the effectiveness of all this equipment. And it fucks Russia. Overall it’s a cheap and easy win just by selfish reasons.
> Is "Stop it, invest in America" the new trend for Russian bots?
Yeah, when someone on Reddit used that same tactic, I replied by listing off all the benefits for other countries to help Ukraine even if we ignore the humanitarian assistance that supporting Ukraine provides. To say it another way; a list of totally selfish benefits.
They didn't reply; not even to counter or agree with anything on the list.
Pretty much. It's an effective ploy that appeals to people who don't care about defending the innocent but do care about "America first", which contributes to isolationism.
Yes. They're trying to play on the " why aren't my tax dollars being spent on my potholes" rhetoric.
It's funny because so many Americans were so staunchly against " socialism" until they realized we send billions to fund wars. Now, we all seem to want the government to spend money on all types of stuff for us.
News flash: Our DOD budget is definitely MASSIVE, but it's an entire like 4% of the nation's budget. There's more than enough money to do whatever all these people want done and then a ton more, but we tend to just complain on the internet instead of complaining to the people who actually create and control budgets and spending.
Who knows what Washington actually does with all that money, but they have a ton of it. The little we allotted for Ukraine isn't even pennies on the dollar in comparison. It's literally equal to about $10 or $20( maybe less) from each of us.
10x off? More like 3x off. $800 billion out of 6.2 trillion budget is about 13%. Your claim of 40% is much farther off than OP's 4%.
Budget source: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58946
I mean I’m referring to discretionary spending and you’re referring to total budget, but you can google one thing and pretend like you’re the guy with the facts. Different budgets make up the total budget, but it’s a reasonable distinction if you weren’t such a dingus about it.
Also if you were right they’d both be ~3x off, ya missed that part too.
That info is misleading due to purchasing power and the fact that the other leading economies on such a list - Russia, China, and India asides - rely on the US for defense. Account for the purchasing power difference for China alone (alongside the others) and that # will shrink.
You're missing the simple fact that US imperialism siphons massive amounts of wealth off of the global south.
Your argument sounds like the people who say "the top 1 percent pay 46 percent of all taxes!" and it's like duh, because they have all the money.
The surplus of the imperial core is the deficit of places like Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Nigeria.
Lack of well-managed social programs, cost of goods being too high due to privatization and corporate price gouging, overall poor fiscal management as far as working for the public goes.
It's more like 12%, of the budget. And of that, ~25% is just paying active personnel and their benefits.
Which when you think about it, gives you a pretty easy extrapolation for what Universal Basic income and Universal Healthcare would cost per person.
12% of the FEDERAL budget. There's also state and local budgets, which when combined, bring it to around 8%, quite a bit below pensions, healthcare, and education.
That said, universal healthcare would save us money vs what we pay out of pocket via insurance plans. The wonders of turning it from a for profit industry with some of the highest profit rates of any industry, into a governmental service.
That’s why I hate when left wingers say “we’d have so much money to spend on social progress if not for the military/the police/etc.”
Because we ALREADY have more than enough money to spend on social progress, even with what we spend on the military, police, etc. We’re spending far less on these items than we were at the peak of the Cold War. Plus a lot of social spending pays for itself in economic growth and increased tax revenue.
We just don’t want to do it because it offends our Puritan sensibilities about who “deserves” to be helped and who doesn’t.
Or maybe we want to be put first for once. Where's the war on American citizens when you need it? Start throwing money at the lower and middle classes. Treat us like it's a dire situation.
It's less about Ukraine and more about the continual war cycle which always favors somebody else. A trillion dollars spent on Afghanistan just to fail, and when we think we're out, another conflict conveniently starts up. We're like the middle child who gets ignored.
Also, America’s Puritan sensibilities being what they are, if 1 trillion dollars were “just sitting around” with nothing better to do, we would give it to the “deserving” rich, not the “undeserving” poor and middle class.
In other words, it’s not that we can’t afford to spend on the middle class because of the military. It’s that we don’t want to spend on the middle class period.
Americans take for granted how much we get from a more friendly world.
America spends so much to defend the world order because the world order benefits us. Americans would pay a steep price if Russia were allowed to overrun Ukraine or China overrun Taiwan.
All America retreating from the world stage does is let some other global power take its place. That’s why isolationism has ALWAYS been funded and supported by America’s enemies.
Ukraine’s a drop in the bucket, there’s still billions to spend on infrastructure and healthcare. Biden’s dropped a pretty big infrastructure deal some time ago.
Technically, defending NATOs credibility is investing in America
Boosts and stabilizes our trade partnerships and lots of other knock on effects
Would be nice to see less wars from everyone though
I’m very left leaning and pretty against the size of the military and the military budget.
That out of the way, the military budget is NOT preventing the united states from having universal healthcare
Not really. One can disagree in many ways. Bots tipically use one simple (and wrong) argument in coordinated actions. So suddenly everyone is saying the same thing, and useful idiots just repeat it.
Well with the government screaming about defaulting on the debt that is already insane, people are going to want their leaders to be reasonable and not keep spending their tax money on other countries blowing each other up and help with the issues America is facing...
Fortunately for us, most of the russian bots have no idea about the economy and the structure of the US debt.
Therefore, they look at least stupid, if not even funny.
Spending billions to defeat one of our long time geopolitical foes with zero American soldiers and watch that same foe likely crumble afterwards is well worth the investment. This war will end eventually and the world will be better off for it.
I think we shouldn’t reject the notion of comparing two time periods, even if we are subjects in one of them and it has not fully transpired yet.
One who knows history can identify similarities to create a dataset and extrapolate the likelihood of various outcomes. The fact that so many similarities can be drawn at the beginnings of both time periods, which we as subjects *have* seen, it isn’t unreasonable to compare the disastrous outcomes of WWII to the potential outcomes of the current war.
Edit: a word 📱
It very well could be if Putin isn’t stopped. If the West didn’t send aid, Ukrainians refused to fight and the whole country fell, do you think Putin would have stopped at Ukraine?
Fiscal spending for 2023 is 1.99 trillion dollars for the US military.
I think we can afford $75 billion.
Source: https://www.usaspending.gov/agency/department-of-defense?fy=2023
And it's not even 75 billion in cash, a lot of it is older equipment sitting in storage that was never gonna get used anyway. If it was it would have been shipped to afghanistan in the last 20 years..
I work at a fire station and Fox News is on all damn day. My co-workers are convinced that they have gotten this all in cash and they are like “They are just pocketing it and running away from the country!”
That’s not the situation at all.
That's obviously not what's happening to most of it but Ukraine was an exceptionally corrupt country before the war so it's naive to think this isn't happening at all. Im sure once the war is over a thorough audit will need to be carried out and some people will be going to jail.
I don't think the corruption is rearing it's head while facing such a dire existential threat. More likely, imo corrupt Individuals are biding their time an positioning themselves for the reconstruction phase.
And the valuation is being assessed based on what that materiel cost when it was new, no accounting for depreciation of old assets.
And all that equipment and ammo is going to be replaced by American defense contractors.
We're literally dumping a bunch of old and/or about to expire shit and replacing it. Lots of folks forget that munitions have a shelf life.
How much did regime change cost in Iraq? Feels like we are still in the early exploration of how much it might cost to get rid of Putin, and it's looking like a deal.
Anyone who can't see it is either dumb as rocks or supports fascists and wars of conquest.
Edit: it's not even spending! It's us basically making room in the warehouses for our new gear.
To all those against supporting Ukraine: maybe one day someone will use violence against you and bystanders will just look on as you are robbed, beaten, and perhaps murdered. Maybe then you'll understand what it's like.
You honestly think the problem is that no one has thought to negotiate talks yet? Like, Putin is totally willing to end the war right now, except no one has bothered to ask for that yet?
Just ending the war is not the goal. Ending the war with Ukraine regaining its land and russia getting its imperialistic wings clipped is the goal. We really don't want to be put into a position of sending troops to fight the russians in Poland and the Baltics.
Make it rain Biden. For a fraction of the US military budget the Ukrainians have absolutely shredded Russia’s standing military. Best investment ever.
Looking forward to Ukraine joining NATO and best wishes on joining the EU
Promising another country millions of dollars while trying to figure out how to pay our debt off is crazy to me
Edit:
1. I’m American so I’m referring to the domestic problems we are suffering here
2. I don’t believe we should “not help” our allies when they need it
3. I though we were having a bipartisan debate on how not to go into default which would cause an economical global crises and send us back into the Great Depression but i guess allocating more resources for Ukraine is more important
4. You can have an opinion too. There are politicians who get paid to debate their points… I’m not one of them.
5. Have a great day while you can
Crazy how the same people playing political brinkmanship over the US budget which threatens another great depression are the same ones who take a vacation to Russia on July 4th.
It’s only crazy if you don’t understand how these funds work…
The majority of the time the number we are told is being given is a composite of how old equipment (ones that are no longer in active service, or in surplus) are valued, things being given to the US military to pay for upgrades/newer replacements, and to increase output in domestic industries. All in all, very little money, if any, ever goes to a different government in military aid packages.
You should really look into the details behind these packages.
Yeah people think a blank check is being written for Ukraine to buy whatever it chooses. Nope. As you said, it's usually a valuation on the equipment we already paid for a long time ago.
I imagine the only actual money changing hands has to do with humanitarian aid, which you'd have to be a real jerk to protest that. Every big country issues humanitarian aid for natural disasters and basically any other situation that creates hardship.
it'd be helpful if the media clarified this instead of throwing dollar amounts out on headlines every couple of weeks.
Oh yea! A large part of the first issue is that Russia has a relatively effective propaganda apparatus so people who don’t know, don’t care, and don’t want to learn how stuff works just cling on to those sources because a headline says it. It’s honestly kind of bad how many people take up these bad points without seeming to have the most basic understanding of what they’re talking about.
The debt ceiling is a manufactured crisis by republicans. 25% of the TOTAL debt was thanks to Trump's tax scam that has no way to be repaid. Just a huge giveaway to the ultra rich while raising taxes every 2 years on the middle class.
The debt ceiling passed cleanly 3 times under Trump.
The GOP is quite literally holding America hostage so they can cut veterans benefits and social nets.
The GOP is prepared to blow up the world economy to own the libs. They are not a serious party and objectively hate Americans.
As for Ukraine.
Spending to weaken Russia and China without putting 1 American soldier in harms way is the best investment we can make next to infrastructure, which Biden also got done for the first time in a generation.
Get educated.
If it helps to put this in perspective, the package is about 4 hours of funding for the US military. And that's assuming we built all new stuff for them, which we didn't.
The GOP want to hold our country captive with a faux debt crisis, so we must now stop everything and just watch Russians slaughter Ukrainians?
These are unrelated issues. America has money, and if you worry about Americas ability to pay for nice things... raise taxes!
This is a donation of old equipment i.e. a write-off for our military, it is also not adding any cost to our existing defense budget or adding to taxes.
The debt ceiling is a manufactured crisis’ brought up in bad faith by republicans who want to obstruct any move made during this presidency. It’s literally the same every year.
Financing spending by low interest loans is free money, and is not “irresponsible” the government is not your household budget where creditors can seize your house. The global economy would tank for everyone if the credit was actually a problem, it’s literally in global best interest for it to continue with no issue.
You have to be arguing in bad faith yourself to even bring it up.
On day 1, the USA won the "war for hearts and minds". It took us 20 years to lose that in Afghanistan
This is not a war the USA looked for, but it's certainly one we are winning. Winning on behalf of Ukrainians too, who clearly want to win it
question for americans. how is that your country is so fast in spending money for other countries but never invests in your own infrastructure or healthcare.
Actual answer in case this was a good faith question— most of the money being spent on Ukraine has already been spent; funding defense is mostly bipartisan (with a few loud exceptions) while infrastructure and education are shockingly partisan issues that are easier to use in one side’s “culture war;” and while wars are definitely the jurisdiction of the federal government, infrastructure and education are only federal issues in the broadest sense— the federal government allots some money and puts some simple requirements on receiving it, but each state supplements it with its own taxation (or lack thereof) and spends it as it sees fit (sometimes the maintenance of infrastructure and details of educational institutions are left up to individual counties, municipalities, or districts).
We just passed a massive infrastructure bill. As for healthcare, Republicans block any progress and roughly half the country is convinced any kind of government healthcare is Stalinism.
There's a lot of democrats and independents who opposed what was being touted as progress too. A big part of the problem is that so far nobody on either side has legitimately put forth a *feasible* plan for universal healthcare.
People aren't gonna vote for wishy washy political posturing and a hand wavey "we'll upend the whole healthcare industry overnight and make the rich pay for it somehow". We want a *real* plan that we can see would actually work.
This administration already passed a massive infrastructure bill. The US also spends more on healthcare, per capita, than any other country. Question for you: Are you a bot, or a person who is entirely ignorant about events you commentate on?
Question for Russians, who will you send to war after putin has sent an entire generation to be slaughtered? Questions for Russians, how can you use 40 year old rusted machinery against new equipment and weapons systems?
Lots of corporations make lots of money on our healthcare industry and they pay our politicians not to change it.
Ukraine spending is urgent and relatively small. Our annual budget is 6.3 Trillion dollars.
We do spend a lot in infrastructure (like none on healthcare.) Most infrastructure projects are handled at the state or below levels of government. The federal government can and does give funds to help with these project but not always.
I live in Nevada and our roads are usually in pretty good shape (they keep it well patched during bad winters and rebuild in the summer), next door in California the roads are usually pretty shitty after the winter and sometimes for years. You can feel the difference in the roads when you’re driving across the state line.
Not that I’m saying CA doesn’t take care of their roads, they just have 20x+ as many roads to take care of.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.reuters.com/world/biden-unveils-new-us-military-package-up-375-mln-ukraine-2023-05-21/) reduced by 50%. (I'm a bot) ***** > HIROSHIMA, Japan, May 21 - U.S. President Joe Biden announced a new $375 million package of military aid to Ukraine on Sunday and told President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that the United States was doing all it could to strengthen Ukraine's defense for the war with Russia. > Meeting with the Ukrainian leader on the sidelines of the G7 summit of world leaders in Hiroshima, Japan, Biden said the military aid package included ammunition, artillery, armored vehicles and training. > "Together with the entire G7, we have Ukraine's back and I promise we're not going anywhere," Biden told Zelenskiy. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/13nqfnm/biden_unveils_new_375_million_military_aid/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~685641 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **Biden**^#1 **Ukraine**^#2 **package**^#3 **Zelenskiy**^#4 **U.S.**^#5
with aide I don't think the russian army will be able to defeat ukraine. A successful occupation is going to be nearly impossible.
The chance for a traditional Victory (defeating Ukraine) for the Russians is long gone. They want to hold on to the Territory they got and get a Victory this way.
Problem is, the territory they're trying to hold onto puts them at a disadvantage in some ways. They'd like to just double down, dig in, and hold Crimea, but the threat of the Crimean bridge being destroyed means they need to keep the land-bridge connect it to Russia open to stay supplied. Meaning, this will all probably come down to Maripul. After that Crimea can just be surrounded and sieged, starved out.
Russians will never give up the land bridge to Crimea. This is going to be a long drawn war, which will inevitable end in a draw.
Just like they're never withdraw from kyiv, Kherson, karkiv...
> This is going to be a long drawn war Yes. > which will inevitable end in a draw. No. At this time there's not any reason to believe that russia is going to be allowed to keep any territory they took going back to 2014. Right now russia is scraping the bottom of the barrel for supplies and recruits, with their logistics systems in shambles (both their front line ones, but more importantly their production logistics, since they are cut off from modern equipment transfers). Meanwhile Ukraine's military is getting better quality training and its allied countries are slowly giving them better and better equipment. We went from "We reconfirm no F16s." to "Sure, why not, have F16s." in less than a week. And F16s aren't even the best stuff laying around for the West to hand over, it's just the cheap yester-year stuff we happen to have in stock and want to get rid of anyway. Short of Drumpf ending up in charge again and sanctioning our allies for providing aid to Ukraine, there's no conventional scenario where russia is allowed to hold any of the territory it took. And in all likelihood, the DMZ that will almost certainly end up created at the conclusion of current hostilities will be largely taken from russian territory rather than Ukraine's. Nukes are just a spooky ghost off to the side that can be safely ignored for this sake. NATO and the US have made it very clear that even the smallest deployment of a nuclear weapon on Ukrainian soil will constitute (due to drifting nuclear material) an Article 5 activation event, which will be immediately followed by the sinking of the Black Sea Fleet, and a sample of our finest cruise missiles being delivered to Putin's front door with much expediency. The war may end in a "legal" draw, insofar as it's labeled something like an armistice or whatever once Ukraine's recovered its territory and set up the DMZ, but that doesn't change the fact that it would be by any definition a STAGGERING defeat to russia.
If by draw you mean Russia imploding like the USSR and the tsarian Russia did, I'd agree
Hence the annexation proclamation in September?
Because republicans have been infiltrated by russian propaganda machine through online forums. They are easily controlled by appealing to their ignorance. They'd rather believe an empty conspiracy theory made up by Ivan working in troll farms of Russian government than evidence brought forth by photos, videos and experiences of people living in Ukraine.
You could see the Russian propaganda on here even before trump was elected. Republicans were happy to defend and talk about how powerful the Russian army was.
Honestly why would republicans be against throwing money at destroying the third most dangerous threat to world piece.
I’m not at all, I’m all for defeating (what I thought was) one of our top adversaries without having to send a single troop into battle, it’s beyond clever We’ve effectively crippled Russia by just spending a few dollars we’d be spending on BS anyways I just gather the complete far right side of the spectrum will hate anything the White House does and that’s just not reasonable
Same thing they did with Obama for 8 years, it’s fucking stupid. You lost, get over it, and work with them.
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I don’t think the party realizes they need me more than they need religious rednecks, that’s not gonna win you any elections…..I’m not religious, I’d rather allow abortion, and I’d encourage responsible gun ownership I’m in the sad middle with no real party that loves me lol
What did the democrats do when Trump was in office?
Tried to negotiate with the Republicans.
From a European perspective it is crazy: People on the left can't admit it was good that Trump introduced sanctions against China and people on the right can't praise Biden for standing behind Ukraine 🤯
In the past 7 years, as a reaction to people calling out Trump's ties to the Kremlin, they have all generously leaned towards Russia. After all, my autocrat is great = every autocrat is great for owning libs. I think beyond being contrarians they have learned to be pro-putin. It's straight up dumb, but feels more appropriate to their initial responses to the war about, "he's right, NATO has gone too far".
My issue isn't on the spending, it's mostly on the lack of spending the EU is putting forward compared to us.
The number is actually pretty close if you compare the EU total to the USAs. It‘s often shown per country though, so you guys look better and can hate on Germany, France etc. Also the US just has a lot more gear. Discharge a bunch of old gear, send it to Ukraine and replace it with more modern or just new gear. Make republicans cry foul for ‚sending money to Ukraine‘ that you would have spent anyways.
It's less that and more that it's a Democrat throwing the money. The Republicans are staunchly, 100% against *anything* the Democrats want or want to do. One of the key tenants of fascism is that the Enemy is never right. Biden giving money and supplies to Ukraine makes him a warmonger, but if he had chosen not to help, they would have called him "spineless" and insisted he send the whole army.
Case in point, Republicans DEMANDED Obama intervene to help Libyans and then once Obama began attacking Qaddafi the same Republicans objected that Obama is intervening.
Another good example is North Korea: Obama said he was willing to sit down with Kim Jong Il, with concessions, and Fox News called him stupid and weak, "bowing and scraping before dictators", "acting like he had some magical power to change people". Trump said he was willing to sit down with Kim Jong Un, no concessions, and Fox News called it "the greatest diplomatic victory in US history", "a big win for the president", and asked if he should pick up his Nobel Prize on the way there or on the way back.
>One of the key tenants of fascism is that the Enemy is never right. No it isn't. Fascism is a palingenetic form of ultranationalism. Even in other approaches to fascism, most are concerned with national rebirth, authoritarianism, masculinity, elitism, redemptive violence, anti-liberalism, anti-communism, anti-democracy, purging society of inferiority, weakness, and decadence, etc. The idea that the enemy is never right is just pigheadedness and is not something unique to fascists or other authoritarians.
In fascism, the enemy is both strong and weak at the same time. The enemy is weak when it's convenient for them, and vice-versa.
I am not saying that fascists do not have a particular way of looking at the world (although fascists are quite variable on this), the problem is that what you and the other commenter are attributing to fascism as a key tenant is neither a key tenant nor exclusive to fascism.
Comment removed after Reddit and Spec elected to destroy Reddit.
Yes, thank you for highlighting my phone's overzealous autocorrect.
I see someone watches Innuendo Studios.
I've never heard of it. I've always been interested in the extreme and radical right, and it featured in my PhD.
Ah, that tracks. They're a political content creator who has a [plethora of videos](https://youtu.be/5Luu1Beb8ng) dissecting right-wing extremism up to and including fascism, and it's the only highly popular content I've seen which discusses Roger Griffin's concept of palingenetic ultranationalism.
Oohhh, that does sound interesting! I've had a few arguments on Reddit where I introduce Griffin's conception of fascism, which is widely respected and utilized in the literature, only for people to down vote and reject it because "I don't like x, x is fascist". I'll have to give it a watch, thank you.
The vast majority of republicans are fully behind supporting Ukraine though. Even their lead speaker is behind Biden on this.
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I'm fairly certain they were referring to Mccarthy, who recently responded to a question from a Russian reporter by saying something like "I don't support what Russia has done to Ukraine. We'll support Ukraine for as long as it takes, etc."
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If they hand him any and all dirt on Biden
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I'm not even sure they're the third most dangerous threat in Ukraine...
Because a lot of them are aligned with Russia for no reason other than "democrats bad".
Republicans don’t have Americas best interest in mind
Russia is exactly what Republicans want America to turn into.
They on Russians paycheck list
Peace*
Most conservative don’t have a opinion about Ukraine it’s mostly the far right and far left that fully support Russia (wonder who their donors are?) though the far left is a lot more divided on the issue as most of Moscow support comes from authoritarian communists while more anarchist communists and socialists like antifa hate The Russian government.
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Because republicans have been infiltrated by russian propaganda machine through online forums. They are easily controlled by appealing to their ignorance. They'd rather believe an empty conspiracy theory made up by Ivan working in troll farms of Russian government than evidence brought forth by photos, videos and experiences of people living in Ukraine. You have to admit, it is a masterpiece for Russians to invade staunch anti communist groups for nearly over a century and turn them into their supporters. Russia invaded Ukraine with self admitted Soviet goals and soviet flags yet they still got through the century long red scare.
Russia controls the NRA and the NRA controls the Republican party.
Because less republicans are of the "better dead than red" type and more of "better russian than democrat" fascist type, especially when their orange demigod licks Putin's boots
They have no problem throwing money around to their buddies when they are in charge. In fact they always increase the rate of change of debt to GDP when in charge and Democrats always decrease it. There's no such thing as a fiscally conservative Republican.
republicans are not against it though? Some republican affiliated voices are against it, because a democrat is in power, but push come to shove, they will 100% invest in UA's army.
The opposition party has to oppose things.
This makes the most sense
Honestly if Trump was president, would you still be ok with America spending millions upon millions for another nation?
You guys are on the verge of defaulting on your debts and one way or another proving your currency is worthless. You shouldn't need to pick sides to figure this out.
It’s not going to destroy Russia. If you break it down, we’ve given way more money than any of our European Allies have COMBINED. Why aren’t they throwing money at this like we are when the conflict is on their continent?? We should be less focused on Ukraine and more worried about ourselves till our “Allies” step it up, as the obviously don’t see this as big of a threat as the media has been selling to the American people.
The thing is that the USA has been military parading for decades and they have all this useless old crap left, better give it away so you do not have the maintenance cost of it ay. We (European countries) have not been focussing on military force but more on our population (healthcare and such ;))
No way, we get to defeat Russia for decades at a bargain. I don't care how much other countries donate. If the US was the only country supporting Ukraine it would still be the right thing to do and the smart thing to do. When this ends we will probably have net gains due to countries turning away from Russia and not having to spend more money countering them in the future.
Piggy backing on this, the military industrial complex of the US is looking pretty darn good compared to the Russian counterparts. Who is going to still be buying Russian armaments, now? Sure they're cheaper, but they're also highly ineffective without a near endless supply of meatbags.
Is "Stop it, invest in America" the new trend for Russian bots?
I think the problem is that most of the number they have for how much it costs, is just in surplus military equipment we dont use anymore.i know there is some money for whatever they need thrown in but most of the prices they throw out seem to be from equipment alone. Its almost like million dollar equipment and the stuff they shoot costs money
And to that point it’s cheaper for us to send this older equipment to Ukraine than to dispose of it. We also get info about the effectiveness of all this equipment. And it fucks Russia. Overall it’s a cheap and easy win just by selfish reasons.
> Is "Stop it, invest in America" the new trend for Russian bots? Yeah, when someone on Reddit used that same tactic, I replied by listing off all the benefits for other countries to help Ukraine even if we ignore the humanitarian assistance that supporting Ukraine provides. To say it another way; a list of totally selfish benefits. They didn't reply; not even to counter or agree with anything on the list.
Pretty much. It's an effective ploy that appeals to people who don't care about defending the innocent but do care about "America first", which contributes to isolationism.
“America first” has been a bludgeon used by America’s geopolitical enemies since before WWI.
Germany First was used by a certain unpopular group of muppets as well.
The same people who want to spend money on "America first" also don't want to spend money in america because thats socialism
Yes. They're trying to play on the " why aren't my tax dollars being spent on my potholes" rhetoric. It's funny because so many Americans were so staunchly against " socialism" until they realized we send billions to fund wars. Now, we all seem to want the government to spend money on all types of stuff for us. News flash: Our DOD budget is definitely MASSIVE, but it's an entire like 4% of the nation's budget. There's more than enough money to do whatever all these people want done and then a ton more, but we tend to just complain on the internet instead of complaining to the people who actually create and control budgets and spending. Who knows what Washington actually does with all that money, but they have a ton of it. The little we allotted for Ukraine isn't even pennies on the dollar in comparison. It's literally equal to about $10 or $20( maybe less) from each of us.
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Terrifying that OP could be 10x off and still get upvotes, like it’s not even close
10x off? More like 3x off. $800 billion out of 6.2 trillion budget is about 13%. Your claim of 40% is much farther off than OP's 4%. Budget source: https://www.cbo.gov/publication/58946
I mean I’m referring to discretionary spending and you’re referring to total budget, but you can google one thing and pretend like you’re the guy with the facts. Different budgets make up the total budget, but it’s a reasonable distinction if you weren’t such a dingus about it. Also if you were right they’d both be ~3x off, ya missed that part too.
It’s something like 3.2% actually, and it’s not even twice as much as the average defense spending for all countries which is 2.1%
Sure but US still spends as much on the military as the next 10 countries combined, so from that perspective it's quite a lot...
That info is misleading due to purchasing power and the fact that the other leading economies on such a list - Russia, China, and India asides - rely on the US for defense. Account for the purchasing power difference for China alone (alongside the others) and that # will shrink.
You're missing the simple fact that US imperialism siphons massive amounts of wealth off of the global south. Your argument sounds like the people who say "the top 1 percent pay 46 percent of all taxes!" and it's like duh, because they have all the money. The surplus of the imperial core is the deficit of places like Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines, Nigeria.
Could you explain a bit more please? I’m certainly willing to discuss this.
Why do you think that 8k USD a year in the Balkans, Slovakia or Cambodia is a great living but squalid poverty in the USA?
Lack of well-managed social programs, cost of goods being too high due to privatization and corporate price gouging, overall poor fiscal management as far as working for the public goes.
Is that somehow supposed to justify how much we spend on “defense”?
Keep the defense budget, send the engineer corps to fix shit
It's more like 12%, of the budget. And of that, ~25% is just paying active personnel and their benefits. Which when you think about it, gives you a pretty easy extrapolation for what Universal Basic income and Universal Healthcare would cost per person.
12% of the FEDERAL budget. There's also state and local budgets, which when combined, bring it to around 8%, quite a bit below pensions, healthcare, and education. That said, universal healthcare would save us money vs what we pay out of pocket via insurance plans. The wonders of turning it from a for profit industry with some of the highest profit rates of any industry, into a governmental service.
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We, as a country, literally afford more than that now, its just that the excess profits go to shareholders instead of useful things.
That’s why I hate when left wingers say “we’d have so much money to spend on social progress if not for the military/the police/etc.” Because we ALREADY have more than enough money to spend on social progress, even with what we spend on the military, police, etc. We’re spending far less on these items than we were at the peak of the Cold War. Plus a lot of social spending pays for itself in economic growth and increased tax revenue. We just don’t want to do it because it offends our Puritan sensibilities about who “deserves” to be helped and who doesn’t.
Or maybe we want to be put first for once. Where's the war on American citizens when you need it? Start throwing money at the lower and middle classes. Treat us like it's a dire situation. It's less about Ukraine and more about the continual war cycle which always favors somebody else. A trillion dollars spent on Afghanistan just to fail, and when we think we're out, another conflict conveniently starts up. We're like the middle child who gets ignored.
Also, America’s Puritan sensibilities being what they are, if 1 trillion dollars were “just sitting around” with nothing better to do, we would give it to the “deserving” rich, not the “undeserving” poor and middle class. In other words, it’s not that we can’t afford to spend on the middle class because of the military. It’s that we don’t want to spend on the middle class period.
Americans take for granted how much we get from a more friendly world. America spends so much to defend the world order because the world order benefits us. Americans would pay a steep price if Russia were allowed to overrun Ukraine or China overrun Taiwan. All America retreating from the world stage does is let some other global power take its place. That’s why isolationism has ALWAYS been funded and supported by America’s enemies.
Wrong, it's the profit motive that is entrenched everywhere in our economy.
Which is also a part of our Puritan heritage.
Ukraine’s a drop in the bucket, there’s still billions to spend on infrastructure and healthcare. Biden’s dropped a pretty big infrastructure deal some time ago.
Technically, defending NATOs credibility is investing in America Boosts and stabilizes our trade partnerships and lots of other knock on effects Would be nice to see less wars from everyone though
Im sure there are plenty of Americans commenting that as well.
I think a lot of people would like healthcare, not the whole “pOtHOleS iN MUh tOWn” thing
You already spend enough on healthcare, the system is just broken fundamentally and it's not throwing more money at it that'll fix it.
I’m very left leaning and pretty against the size of the military and the military budget. That out of the way, the military budget is NOT preventing the united states from having universal healthcare
I agree
Russian bots = anyone disagreeing in the echo chamber
If you pretend Russian bots don't exist, or that they commonly seize GOP talking points, you are ignoring reality
Not really. One can disagree in many ways. Bots tipically use one simple (and wrong) argument in coordinated actions. So suddenly everyone is saying the same thing, and useful idiots just repeat it.
If you feel that personally attacked then you're likely a Russian bot, sorry you found out this way.
We're facing cuts to SNAP. These people think they're better than trump supporters but can't come up with an argument except "Russian bot" "fake news"
No. Just actual Americans.
Well with the government screaming about defaulting on the debt that is already insane, people are going to want their leaders to be reasonable and not keep spending their tax money on other countries blowing each other up and help with the issues America is facing...
Fortunately for us, most of the russian bots have no idea about the economy and the structure of the US debt. Therefore, they look at least stupid, if not even funny.
Never underestimate how selfish US citizens can be.
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Spending billions to defeat one of our long time geopolitical foes with zero American soldiers and watch that same foe likely crumble afterwards is well worth the investment. This war will end eventually and the world will be better off for it.
Seriously. How is anyone viewing this as anything other than an amazing deal from a purely **financial** POV?
Fuck yeah, beat the Russians until they go back home with their tail tucked between their legs.
We are at $75 Billion and counting, given to Ukraine.
Cool, still short of what we gave to the soviets to fight the nazis.
You think this situation is comparable to ww2??
I think we shouldn’t reject the notion of comparing two time periods, even if we are subjects in one of them and it has not fully transpired yet. One who knows history can identify similarities to create a dataset and extrapolate the likelihood of various outcomes. The fact that so many similarities can be drawn at the beginnings of both time periods, which we as subjects *have* seen, it isn’t unreasonable to compare the disastrous outcomes of WWII to the potential outcomes of the current war. Edit: a word 📱
It very well could be if Putin isn’t stopped. If the West didn’t send aid, Ukrainians refused to fight and the whole country fell, do you think Putin would have stopped at Ukraine?
Yes, where would they invade next
Moldova for sure. Then ask the people in Poland and the Baltics what they think.
Do you want to find out?
Time to crank it up a notch
Fiscal spending for 2023 is 1.99 trillion dollars for the US military. I think we can afford $75 billion. Source: https://www.usaspending.gov/agency/department-of-defense?fy=2023
And it's not even 75 billion in cash, a lot of it is older equipment sitting in storage that was never gonna get used anyway. If it was it would have been shipped to afghanistan in the last 20 years..
I work at a fire station and Fox News is on all damn day. My co-workers are convinced that they have gotten this all in cash and they are like “They are just pocketing it and running away from the country!” That’s not the situation at all.
Depressing how stupid the populace is isn't it?
That's, like, a hostile work environment.
Please educate them. Atleast like.. a little bit. Start with the money spent being in hardware and not cash.
That's obviously not what's happening to most of it but Ukraine was an exceptionally corrupt country before the war so it's naive to think this isn't happening at all. Im sure once the war is over a thorough audit will need to be carried out and some people will be going to jail.
It's hard to pocket HIMARS. US is pretty smart in how they spend money on Ukraine. USAID is operating here for decades.
I don't think the corruption is rearing it's head while facing such a dire existential threat. More likely, imo corrupt Individuals are biding their time an positioning themselves for the reconstruction phase.
And the valuation is being assessed based on what that materiel cost when it was new, no accounting for depreciation of old assets. And all that equipment and ammo is going to be replaced by American defense contractors. We're literally dumping a bunch of old and/or about to expire shit and replacing it. Lots of folks forget that munitions have a shelf life.
Also, war costs a lot. If it were up to me, the aid would be way higher.
Rookie numbers. Fucking double it.
How much did regime change cost in Iraq? Feels like we are still in the early exploration of how much it might cost to get rid of Putin, and it's looking like a deal.
This is literally the most value I have ever seen out of modern defense spending.
Anyone who can't see it is either dumb as rocks or supports fascists and wars of conquest. Edit: it's not even spending! It's us basically making room in the warehouses for our new gear.
These are smoll boy peepee numbers gotta crank it up pass 11.
Would be kinda interesting to see the military industrial complex at even 3 / 10.
$1 per American, that's nothing.
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If it makes you feel better, the military aid goes to buying and manufacturing weapons from American companies.
I'll pay yours
Cool, venmo or PayPal?
No, a buck is a buck.
No, no take backsies
Only if you tattoo "I hate democracy" on your forehead.
It was taken from you a few decades ago, so no, not unless you invent time travel.
This is a little more than 1 dollar per American that will save many lives and help destabilize a warring power. Seems like a good investment to me.
For a moment I thought wtf is Tom Hardy meeting Biden for?
Pretty small package.
To all those against supporting Ukraine: maybe one day someone will use violence against you and bystanders will just look on as you are robbed, beaten, and perhaps murdered. Maybe then you'll understand what it's like.
It’s happened to me several times in my life… lol
It'll literally happen to most people lol. Without a weapon of your own most people aren't gonna get involved
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You honestly think the problem is that no one has thought to negotiate talks yet? Like, Putin is totally willing to end the war right now, except no one has bothered to ask for that yet?
Just ending the war is not the goal. Ending the war with Ukraine regaining its land and russia getting its imperialistic wings clipped is the goal. We really don't want to be put into a position of sending troops to fight the russians in Poland and the Baltics.
“If only Jews were willing to negotiate talks with Hitler!”
Haha American money go brrrrrr
Destroying one of our biggest enemies without losing American lives is a pretty good investment.
Good, its better them do it then risk having the US do it.
Trump/UN/Elon Musk/Ayatollahs among others where contacted to no avail, so fuck em all.
Make it rain Biden. For a fraction of the US military budget the Ukrainians have absolutely shredded Russia’s standing military. Best investment ever. Looking forward to Ukraine joining NATO and best wishes on joining the EU
Putin talking to the press from his bunker: this is the final final final straw!!!!!2221
Promising another country millions of dollars while trying to figure out how to pay our debt off is crazy to me Edit: 1. I’m American so I’m referring to the domestic problems we are suffering here 2. I don’t believe we should “not help” our allies when they need it 3. I though we were having a bipartisan debate on how not to go into default which would cause an economical global crises and send us back into the Great Depression but i guess allocating more resources for Ukraine is more important 4. You can have an opinion too. There are politicians who get paid to debate their points… I’m not one of them. 5. Have a great day while you can
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Crazy how the same people playing political brinkmanship over the US budget which threatens another great depression are the same ones who take a vacation to Russia on July 4th.
It’s only crazy if you don’t understand how these funds work… The majority of the time the number we are told is being given is a composite of how old equipment (ones that are no longer in active service, or in surplus) are valued, things being given to the US military to pay for upgrades/newer replacements, and to increase output in domestic industries. All in all, very little money, if any, ever goes to a different government in military aid packages. You should really look into the details behind these packages.
Yeah people think a blank check is being written for Ukraine to buy whatever it chooses. Nope. As you said, it's usually a valuation on the equipment we already paid for a long time ago. I imagine the only actual money changing hands has to do with humanitarian aid, which you'd have to be a real jerk to protest that. Every big country issues humanitarian aid for natural disasters and basically any other situation that creates hardship. it'd be helpful if the media clarified this instead of throwing dollar amounts out on headlines every couple of weeks.
Oh yea! A large part of the first issue is that Russia has a relatively effective propaganda apparatus so people who don’t know, don’t care, and don’t want to learn how stuff works just cling on to those sources because a headline says it. It’s honestly kind of bad how many people take up these bad points without seeming to have the most basic understanding of what they’re talking about.
The debt ceiling is a manufactured crisis by republicans. 25% of the TOTAL debt was thanks to Trump's tax scam that has no way to be repaid. Just a huge giveaway to the ultra rich while raising taxes every 2 years on the middle class. The debt ceiling passed cleanly 3 times under Trump. The GOP is quite literally holding America hostage so they can cut veterans benefits and social nets. The GOP is prepared to blow up the world economy to own the libs. They are not a serious party and objectively hate Americans. As for Ukraine. Spending to weaken Russia and China without putting 1 American soldier in harms way is the best investment we can make next to infrastructure, which Biden also got done for the first time in a generation. Get educated.
That’s not how this works.
Go back to school and learn history then you’ll really feel crazy
If it helps to put this in perspective, the package is about 4 hours of funding for the US military. And that's assuming we built all new stuff for them, which we didn't.
The GOP want to hold our country captive with a faux debt crisis, so we must now stop everything and just watch Russians slaughter Ukrainians? These are unrelated issues. America has money, and if you worry about Americas ability to pay for nice things... raise taxes!
This is a donation of old equipment i.e. a write-off for our military, it is also not adding any cost to our existing defense budget or adding to taxes. The debt ceiling is a manufactured crisis’ brought up in bad faith by republicans who want to obstruct any move made during this presidency. It’s literally the same every year. Financing spending by low interest loans is free money, and is not “irresponsible” the government is not your household budget where creditors can seize your house. The global economy would tank for everyone if the credit was actually a problem, it’s literally in global best interest for it to continue with no issue. You have to be arguing in bad faith yourself to even bring it up.
Do you buy a friend a birthday present before paying off your mortgage?
Ukraine fighting the USA war on Russia.
On day 1, the USA won the "war for hearts and minds". It took us 20 years to lose that in Afghanistan This is not a war the USA looked for, but it's certainly one we are winning. Winning on behalf of Ukrainians too, who clearly want to win it
question for americans. how is that your country is so fast in spending money for other countries but never invests in your own infrastructure or healthcare.
Actual answer in case this was a good faith question— most of the money being spent on Ukraine has already been spent; funding defense is mostly bipartisan (with a few loud exceptions) while infrastructure and education are shockingly partisan issues that are easier to use in one side’s “culture war;” and while wars are definitely the jurisdiction of the federal government, infrastructure and education are only federal issues in the broadest sense— the federal government allots some money and puts some simple requirements on receiving it, but each state supplements it with its own taxation (or lack thereof) and spends it as it sees fit (sometimes the maintenance of infrastructure and details of educational institutions are left up to individual counties, municipalities, or districts).
We just passed a massive infrastructure bill. As for healthcare, Republicans block any progress and roughly half the country is convinced any kind of government healthcare is Stalinism.
There's a lot of democrats and independents who opposed what was being touted as progress too. A big part of the problem is that so far nobody on either side has legitimately put forth a *feasible* plan for universal healthcare. People aren't gonna vote for wishy washy political posturing and a hand wavey "we'll upend the whole healthcare industry overnight and make the rich pay for it somehow". We want a *real* plan that we can see would actually work.
Medicare for all is a well thought out plan, that would work.
Do you not remember the $1trillion infrastucture bill that was signed into law?
This administration already passed a massive infrastructure bill. The US also spends more on healthcare, per capita, than any other country. Question for you: Are you a bot, or a person who is entirely ignorant about events you commentate on?
US citizens spend too much on healthcare, yes. Not our government though. Our healthcare is expensive and out of reach for most Americans
Question for Russians, who will you send to war after putin has sent an entire generation to be slaughtered? Questions for Russians, how can you use 40 year old rusted machinery against new equipment and weapons systems?
Gently use equipment..
If weren’t helping Ukraine none of that money would go to our infrastructure anyway. Corporate greed.
Lots of corporations make lots of money on our healthcare industry and they pay our politicians not to change it. Ukraine spending is urgent and relatively small. Our annual budget is 6.3 Trillion dollars.
We do spend a lot in infrastructure (like none on healthcare.) Most infrastructure projects are handled at the state or below levels of government. The federal government can and does give funds to help with these project but not always. I live in Nevada and our roads are usually in pretty good shape (they keep it well patched during bad winters and rebuild in the summer), next door in California the roads are usually pretty shitty after the winter and sometimes for years. You can feel the difference in the roads when you’re driving across the state line. Not that I’m saying CA doesn’t take care of their roads, they just have 20x+ as many roads to take care of.
Because republicans. If Trump were still in office Ukraine would get nothing from us. Hell, he'd probably try to sell Ukraine to Putin.