Leaders in Washington should have answered all these questions, and more, before sending billions to Ukraine. The truth is, though, few have even considered them.
www.newsweek.com
All of this text quoted from the OP comes from the above Heritage Foundation editorial in Newsweek.
It didn't even last a month.
In late April,
Congress waved Ukraine's colors once again while appropriating another $60 billion for the Ukraine war. Within days, though, the same people who pushed for the package on the Hill, in the
White House, and throughout the
Washington establishment began saying our aid wouldn't be enough for Ukraine to stop Russian advances.
I don't know of anyone advocating for that funding claiming that it would be the last military aid Ukraine would need during the Russian invasion.
They're already
beating the drum for more support.
I did not watch the linked congressional hearing (those tend to be long), but I did read through the written testimony of the three witness. Their testimony was not in the form "we need a new aid package now", but instead were about *how* we aid Ukraine and yes, acknowledging future aid needs. Some of those "how" aspects included reevaluating how US military contractors are allowed to interact with Ukraine, what targets they can use western provided weapons to strike (and more importantly *where*, the pacing of the delivery of aid, the types of weapons provided, etc.
Make no mistake. My organization, the Heritage Foundation, wants Ukraine to win and America to flourish.
So they claim, but I have my skepticism given the nature of this op-ed.
So do the American people. What most Americans don't want, however, is for Washington to prioritize Ukraine's security to the detriment of our fiscal health and other pressing domestic priorities, such as the crisis at the southern border.
When you say "we should do this thing, but only after we do this other thing" it usually means one of two things:
1. We don't really want to this thing (further aid to Ukraine) and here are the excuses, or
2. Our interest in this thing (further aid to Ukraine) is mostly about using it to leverage what we want (border security, budget cuts, etc.)
A recent
poll we conducted of voters in battleground states found that three out of four respondents opposed sending more aid to Ukraine without fortifying our own border. Most (56 percent) also felt that the United States had already sent too much aid to Ukraine—and that was before this latest package passed.
All of this mentioned that the original version of the bill containing the Ukraine aid had a huge border security package, and the far right chose to kill that version of the bill anyway.
They're right. Since 2022, Congress has designated more than $173 billion for the conflict in Ukraine—nearly as much as the Army's annual budget and about $1,300 per American household—and there is still no plan for victory or peace from the commander in chief. All of this, of course, comes on top of an $895 billion budget for the Department of Defense this year.
This is the classic language used by think tanks like Heritage to argue *against* things. The "per household" language is telling. It is standard rhetoric used to make regular Americans think that this particular expenditure was directly taking taking that particular amount of money from each household. That's not how it works and Heritage knows it. There is no tax made per household and US income taxes are not only in proportion to income, but progressive in rates. (Not to mention corporate taxes not paid by households.)
The lack of serious thought behind this massive investment is startling, and merits further scrutiny. Even as Democrats and Republicans inside the beltway congratulate one another on doing "the right thing" by shoveling another unpaid-for tranche of taxpayer dollars at the problem, there remain many unanswered questions on the war in Ukraine.
This is just plain false. There is plenty of serious thought about the amount and nature of US military aid to Ukraine, in Congress, in the White House, in the Pentagon, in the State Department, and among our allies and partners in this endeavor. Not to mention the serious thoughts and planning by Ukrainian officials.
Overall I find this argument from Heritage empty and disingenuous. I do thank you for making us aware of it.
If the programmer has a bias, then the computer might have a bias as well. Even if another computer (say computer 1) has an AI which programmed the main computer (computer 2), computer 1's software could be biased as well, potentially leading to a bias in computer 2.
