Turns out the federal government didn’t shut down last weekend, even though we may have to go through this all again in six weeks. In the end, the then President of the House of Representatives, Republican Kevin McCarthy, did the obvious: He submitted a funding bill to the House of Representatives that could only be passed with Democratic votes because his party’s hardliners were unwilling to compromise. Nothing feasible. And the bill contained none of the spending cuts Republicans demanded, except for one big, bad thing: cutting off aid to Ukraine.
But why did it happen like this? Michael Strain of the American Enterprise Institute, a right-leaning but largely non-Make America Great Again (MAGA) think tank, has called the tax conflict a “Seinfeld shutdown.” The expression is good, but if we start with the references to popular culture, I think it would be better to talk about a “network shutdown”, like when people shout: “I’m very angry and I won’t accept it.” more!”
Nothing short of a coup can appease this incipient anger. But it is clear that McCarthy thought he could soften the rejection of his deal if Democrats betrayed Ukraine, or at least acted as if they were betraying it. It’s clear that this is what the MAGA people want. But why?
Despite what anti-Ukraine voices like Elon Musk’s may claim, it is not a question of money.
Hardliners on the right, both in Congress and outside, say they are angered by the amount the United States is spending to support Ukraine. But if they truly cared about the financial burden of aid, they would make minimal effort to get the math right. No, aid to Ukraine does not undermine the future of Social Security, make securing our border impossible, or consume 40% of America’s gross domestic product.
How much are we really spending on supporting Ukraine? In the 18 months following the Russian invasion, American aid totaled $77 billion. It seems like a lot, and it is when we compare it to the tiny amounts we normally allocate to development aid. But total federal spending now exceeds $6 trillion a year, or more than $9 trillion every 18 months, so aid to Ukraine represents less than 1% of federal spending (and less than 0.3% of GDP). The military portion of this spending represents less than 5% of the US defense budget.
By the way, the United States is by no means the only country bearing the burden of aid to Ukraine. In the past, Donald Trump and others have complained that European nations are not spending enough on their own defense. But when it comes to Ukraine, European nations and institutions have collectively made aid commitments that are significantly larger than ours. Specifically, most European countries – including France, Germany and the United Kingdom – have promised aid that represents a larger percentage of GDP than what the United States has offered.
But back to the cost of supporting Ukraine: considering how small this budget item is, the claim that aid to this European country prevents other necessary things such as securing the border makes no sense. MAGA types aren’t known for doing the math or worrying about getting it right, but I doubt even they really believe that the financial cost of helping Ukraine is prohibitive.
And the benefits of helping a beleaguered democracy are enormous. Recall that before the war, Russia was widely recognized as a major military power, seen by most Americans as a fundamental threat (and whose socially unconscious military was praised by some Republicans). Now that power has been humiliated.
Ukraine’s unexpectedly effective resistance to Russian aggression has also caught the attention of other autocratic regimes that may have been tempted to wage wars of conquest and are finding that democracies are not so easy to dominate. To put it bluntly, Russia’s failures in Ukraine have certainly reduced the likelihood of China invading Taiwan.
After all, what even Republicans once called the free world has clearly been strengthened. NATO has risen to the occasion, astonishing cynics and gaining new members. Western weapons have proven their effectiveness.
These are major benefits in return for expenditures that are only a small fraction of what we spent in Iraq and Afghanistan; And let’s not forget that it is the Ukrainians who are fighting and dying. Why do MAGA politicians want to turn off the tap to Ukraine?
Unfortunately, the answer is obvious. Whatever Republican hardliners say, they want Russian President Vladimir Putin to win. They view the cruelty and repression of the Putin regime as admirable qualities that the United States should emulate. They support a would-be dictator at home and sympathize with real dictators abroad.
So don’t pay attention to all these complaints about how much we spend in Ukraine. The actual cost of the aid doesn’t justify it, and people who say they’re concerned about the cost don’t really care about the money. Essentially, they are enemies of democracy, both abroad and in the United States.
Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize winner in economics. © The New York Times, 2023. Translation from News Clips.
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