{"id":1497994,"date":"2022-05-31T11:44:38","date_gmt":"2022-05-31T15:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1497994"},"modified":"2022-05-31T11:44:46","modified_gmt":"2022-05-31T15:44:46","slug":"gop-neocons-unclear-on-where-40-billion-for-ukraine-will-come-from","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gop-neocons-unclear-on-where-40-billion-for-ukraine-will-come-from\/","title":{"rendered":"GOP Neocons Unclear On Where $40 Billion For Ukraine Will Come From"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgop-neocons-unclear-on-where-40-billion-for-ukraine-will-come-from%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1497994&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/Dan-Crenshaw.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" alt=\"image\" \/><\/div>\n<p>President Joe Biden signed a $40 billion aid package to Ukraine over a week ago, bringing total taxpayer funding for the war-torn nation to roughly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/2022\/05\/20\/upshot\/ukraine-us-aid-size.html\">$54 billion<\/a> with Republican support \u2014 but where exactly these additional funds are coming from remains a mystery. <\/p>\n<p>The bill, which offers $7 billion more than the president requested, passed the <a href=\"https:\/\/clerk.house.gov\/Votes\/2022145\">House<\/a> with 149 Republicans voting in favor, and another 25 Republicans in the Senate securing its passage a week later. Only 57 Republicans in the House and 11 Republicans in the Senate voted in opposition. <\/p>\n<p>GOP Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley condemned the package as a colossal donation made against \u201cAmerican interests.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt neglects priorities at home (the border), allows Europe to freeload, short changes critical interests abroad and comes w\/ no meaningful oversight,\u201d Hawley <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HawleyMO\/status\/1526323883980242949?s=20&#038;t=KMGN4FpqZgbIZaKjI6GoDg\">tweeted<\/a> ahead of the Senate vote. He also <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2022\/05\/24\/hawley-40-billion-to-ukraine-is-more-failed-uniparty-nation-building-that-hoses-american-interests\/\">published<\/a> an op-ed critical of a neocon resurgence within the Republican Party last Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Republicans outside congressional leadership who championed the bill include Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, and Texas Rep. Dan Crenshaw. <\/p>\n<p>Days after the vote in the lower chamber, Crenshaw went on Fox News to defend his support for the billions sent to Ukraine, calling it a vehicle to pivot our foreign policy focus from Russia to China. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is an investment in the severe degradation of our second biggest adversary, the Russian military,\u201d Crenshaw <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=s761c09z-go\">said<\/a>. \u201cThat allows us to do something. That allows us to focus on our actual biggest adversary, which is China.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Graham made a similar case on the same network, claiming the fate of Taiwan depends on the fate of the Ukrainians. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cChina is just waiting to see what to do with Taiwan. All the chips in the world for our high-tech industry come from Taiwan. So, there\u2019s a lot at stake here,\u201d Graham <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/lindsey-graham-republican-aid-ukraine-russia\">said<\/a>, conceding that more federal attention ought to be paid to domestic issues. \u201cWe should have rational border policies. We don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Christian Whiton, a former senior adviser in the State Department under Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump who now serves as a senior fellow for the Center for National Interest, told The Federalist that if lawmakers were serious about a pivot to China, they would be already pivoting to China, not Ukraine. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you want to focus on Asia, you focus on Asia. This will get us deeper in the issues of Europe,\u201d Whiton said of the billions in taxpayer dollars being shipped off to Ukraine. \u201cWe are actually increasing the moral hazard where we let Europe off the hook where we\u2019re paying for its security. None of that is going to make it easier to shift to Asia.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Lawmakers can\u2019t give a straight answer on where exactly Congress\u2019s appropriated funds for Ukraine will ultimately come from. When asked whether they would support raising taxes to pay for the $54 billion to Ukraine, each of the three \u2014 Crenshaw, Graham, and Ernst \u2014 offered different answers. Crenshaw\u2019s office offered no response, while Ernst\u2019s spokeswoman responded with a simple \u201cno.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Speaking in mid-May, Graham\u2019s communications director Kevin Bishop told The Federalist the issue hadn\u2019t yet been discussed. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cGraham has expressed support, including speaking on the floor yesterday, about seizing Russian oligarch assets to help with the costs associated with Ukraine,\u201d Bishop said. <\/p>\n<p>Whiton warned of \u201cfinite defense budgets\u201d as tax dollars become scarcer amid recession and fiscal crises brought by unrestrained Washington spending. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority,\u201d Whiton said. \u201cFrankly when it comes to spending, when it comes to our attention span our focus needs to be on China now, not in some distant future.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\" \/>\n<p>\n  Tristan Justice is the western correspondent for The Federalist. He has also written for The Washington Examiner and The Daily Signal. His work has also been featured in Real Clear Politics and Fox News. Tristan graduated from George Washington University where he majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow him on Twitter at @JusticeTristan or contact him at Tristan@thefederalist.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>President Joe Biden signed a $40 billion aid package to Ukraine over a week ago, bringing total taxpayer funding for the war-torn nation to roughly $54 billion with Republican support<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":494,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1497994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/494"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1497994"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497994\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1497994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1497994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1497994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}