Most of the money is in the form of obsolete equipment and munitions that would never be deployed by the US and is just taking up space in warehouses.sycasey said:I would believe this could work if I believed the core of the Republican opposition was really about cost. I don't think it is.tequila4kapp said:
Perhaps a middle ground could be if we quit giving foreign aid to Ukraine and instead moved to a lend lease program. That could be a bridge toward a world where it isn't costing us anything and we are smartly continuing our efforts to stop an evil enemy.
And to be clear, it's not a majority of Republicans who oppose the aid. If the foreign aid bill came to the floor in the House it would easily pass. The MAGA fringe of the GOP oppose it and with only a slim majority they can influence the Speaker to prevent a vote.
Our military continues to be incredibly wasteful (for all of the reasons everyone is familiar with) but a lot of that waste is being put to use in Ukraine.
I would be all for a reduction in military spend but even so, I think we've gotten a higher ROI on our Ukraine military aid than any defense program in the last few decades. The ballyhooed littoral combat ship program is costing something like $100B and is basically of no value to us. Supporting Ukraine has probably cut Russia's military effectiveness in half and it will take years if not decades for Putin and his successors to return to the pre-invasion strength of the Russian military, and we now know that the pre-invasion strength was vastly over-estimated.
Russia might pose a higher percentage threat now than we realized a few years ago, but the magnitude of the threat is much smaller. All that for perhaps 3-5% of our annual military spend (the actual spend being quite fuzzy due to how you value obsolete military gear).
