Playing a shell game on aid to Ukraine

After two years of being assured that the U.S. government has exquisite oversight on aid provided to Ukraine, last week Sens. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), Rand Paul (R-Ky.), and Mike Lee (R-Utah), along with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), exposed nearly $14 billion in Ukraine aid that the Biden administration’s Office of Management and Budget had failed to take into account. Yet rather than taking the administration to task, this week House Republican leadership is set to perform some creative accounting of their own to send yet another aid package to Ukraine.

While previous aid packages have been unconditional grants, this time some of the aid will be in the form of a loan. In theory, that’s a smart compromise. The trouble is the execution: This bill isn’t intended to come due. The “loan” would be structured at 0 percent interest,would be waivable by President Biden, and would be financed with more U.S. debt. No one in Washington seriously plans to ask for the money back. And if they did, Ukraine could simply default on the loan.

It’s a classic D.C. move. In the face of Americans’ growing Ukraine fatigue, a bipartisan group is playing a shell game to see if their constituents can follow the ball. It’s the latest in a series of suspect money moves from both sides of the Atlantic — and it was predictable.

In the Wall Street Journal in May 2022, I was one of the first conservatives to take a stand against sending more money to Kiev. I argued that while “helping Ukraine defend itself against Russian aggression is clearly in the national interest of the U.S.,” the take-it-or-leave-it $40 billion package that was rushed through Congress failed to address important criticisms. Specifically, I pointed out that America’s aid lacked the oversight of a specially assigned inspector general and failed to focus spending on Ukraine’s essential military needs.

In the past two years, those concerns have proven correct. The Pentagon admitted that they failed to track over $1 billion in military material sent to Ukraine and found a $6.2 billion accounting error when tallying up the cost of weaponry. Ukraine’s minister of Defense was fired for questions around military graft. Billions in U.S. aid have flowed to economic aid rather than lethal weapons. More importantly, then as now, President Biden has presented no coherent strategy or plan for victory or peace in Ukraine to the American people, who are gradually losing patience with the bloody stalemate his administration has created. 

According to new polling that The Heritage Foundation conducted in collaboration with RMG Research, even a majority (56 percent) of swing voters in key battleground states think that the reported $113 billion—$6 billion more than New York City’s entire 2024 budget—the United States has already spent helping Ukraine is too much. Only 12 percent think it’s too little. And an overwhelming three out of four swing voters would oppose any proposal that sent more aid to Ukraine without also allocating funding to secure our southern border. Unfortunately, the so-called national security package this week secures the borders of three other nations without touching our own border.

The American people already recognize what our foreign policy establishment won’t admit to itself. The current stopgap approach isn’t working for anyone. It isn’t working for Ukraine, which continues to lose ground and lives. And, most importantly, it isn’t working for America, who is being stretched beyond her limit as she funds intractable conflicts in every corner of the world while suffering a historic catastrophe on the southern border. 

That brings us to what the upcoming Ukraine vote—and the 2024 election, for that matter—is really about: Do the American people have any say in Washington, or not? And can our leaders be honest with the American people?

Conservatives should oppose sending any more aid to Ukraine until President Biden presents a plan to end the war and Congress comes up with an honest, fiscally responsible way to ensure that our aid is responsibly distributed. If it’s a loan, there should be enforcement provisions to make sure it’s paid back. The American people deserve a fair shake in Washington. They won’t get one if Congress continues to play money games with an administration that keeps cooking the books.

Kevin Roberts is the president of The Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action for America.