• Silverseren
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      fedilink
      31 year ago

      "Congress on Saturday passed a short-term funding bill to avoid a government shutdown mere hours before the deadline and after lawmakers dropped additional support for Ukraine from the bill.

      The White House in August asked Congress for an additional $24 billion in additional military and economic aid to Ukraine. But even in the Senate, where Ukraine enjoys broad bipartisan support, appropriators scaled that back to $6 billion.

      That amount included $1.5 billion in replenishment funds to backfill U.S. stocks and another $1.5 billion for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which allows the Pentagon to place contracts for defense manufacturers to build weapons systems for Kyiv over the longer-term.

      But even an extra $6 billion for Ukraine proved to be too high a bar for McCarthy. While a strong, bipartisan majority of the House still supports Ukraine aid, roughly half the House Republican caucus now opposes it.

      House Republican leaders had to strip a separate $300 million in Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funding from the defense spending bill on Thursday in order to pass that legislation largely along party lines. The House then voted 311-117 to send that $300 million in Ukraine funding separately to the Senate. Dozens more Republicans who had previously voted to preserve that funding in July reversed course and voted against it on Thursday."

      https://www.defensenews.com/congress/2023/10/01/congress-avoids-government-shutdown-drops-ukraine-aid/