Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) and Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) have drafted a letter to the director of the Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young, dated September 5 and as yet unsigned, chiding the Biden Regime for requesting $24 billion more for the Ukraine Meat Grinder despite significant Pentagon accounting errors and a total lack of an exit plan in the former Soviet Republic.
The draft letter criticizes the Biden Regime for refusing to provide an overview of US government spending in Ukraine, a seemingly “open-ended commitment to supporting the war in Ukraine of an indeterminate nature”, and based on a strategy “that is unclear, to achieve a goal yet to be articulated to the public or the Congress.”
“The American people deserve to know what their money has gone to. How is the counteroffensive going? Are the Ukrainians any closer to victory than they were 6 months ago? What is our strategy, and what is the president’s exit plan?”, Vance and Roy wrote, calling it “an absurd abdication of congressional responsibility to grant this request without knowing the answers to these questions.”
Therefore, the Senator and Congressman oppose “additional expenditure for the war in Ukraine,” they wrote.
It was not clear what other members of Congress may support the letter:
Dear Director Young,
We are in receipt of your August 10, 2023 request for additional supplemental appropriations, in which you ask Congress to provide another $24 billion in security, economic, and humanitarian assistance related to the war in Ukraine.
Since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the United States has appropriated $114 billion in supplemental funding for Ukraine and “countries impacted by the situation in Ukraine.” However, this amount does not reflect the full picture, which includes transferred and reprogrammed funds. The administration has requested additional authority to transfer and reprogram funds in all five of its supplemental requests. In January 2023, senators and members of the House wrote to you requesting a full crosscutting report on U.S. government-wide expenditures for Ukraine and “countries impacted by the situation in Ukraine” since February 24, 2022. Your administration has refused to provide this report, leaving the vast majority of Congress unaware of how much the United States has spent to date in total on this conflict, information which is necessary for Congress to prudently exercise its appropriations power.
You claim in your request that “[p]revious supplemental appropriations for direct military aid, economic and humanitarian assistance, and other support have been committed or nearly committed.” This is a statement which carefully avoids detailing where these funds actually are in the federal fiscal process. Has all of the previously provided supplemental budget authority been obligated? Has it been apportioned? What is the ratio of unobligated funds to obligated funds to outlays? These are key pieces of information that senators and members of Congress need to make a decision on this request. It is difficult to envision a benign explanation for this lack of clarity.
The Department of Defense’s recent $6.2 billion accounting error on Ukraine Presidential Drawdown Authorities (PDA) further underscores the need for a detailed report. When an executive department’s accounting mechanism may be altered or replaced to permit the provision of an additional $6 billion in defense articles or services to foreign governments (out of, very roughly, an overall authority of $25 billion), the Congress cannot make an accurate determination of the value of articles it might transmit to a foreign entity when voting on PDA limitations.
The Senate also recently passed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a bill which authorized the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative for three more years, and provided an authorization of $300 million for the program in Fiscal Year 2024. The House version of the legislation also authorizes the program at $300 million in Fiscal Year 2024. You have asked for $5 billion for this program, 15 times more than either of these figures. Neither the House Statement of Administration Policy on the NDAA nor the Senate Statement of Administration Policy on the NDAA or the addendum filed 9 days later mention that the authorized figure was insufficient. Disjuncture between authorization and appropriation figures of this magnitude makes a mockery of the NDAA’s authorization process, which has occurred for 62 years consecutively.
Your request cites President Biden’s pledge that “we will stand with Ukraine as it defends its sovereignty for as long as it takes.” Andrew Desiderio of PunchBowl News has received a background quote from a senior administration official stating the White House “won’t be bashful about going back to the Congress beyond the first quarter of next year.” He stated that the official “[s]tresses this [funding request] is only for [Quarter] 1.” These statements imply an open-ended commitment to supporting the war in Ukraine of an indeterminate nature, based on a strategy that is unclear, to achieve a goal yet to be articulated to the public or the Congress.
The American people deserve to know what their money has gone to. How is the counteroffensive going? Are the Ukrainians any closer to victory than they were 6 months ago?
What is our strategy, and what is the president’s exit plan? It would be an absurd abdication of congressional responsibility to grant this request without knowing the answers to these questions. For these reasons, and others, we oppose the additional expenditure for the war in Ukraine included in your supplemental request.”
As the US and allies have sunk billions on a much-heralded Ukarinian Counter-Offensive, which has barely made 10 km headway into Russian-held territory at its deepest salient, NATO countries are beginning to wonder what Plan B is.