The arrival in the House of Representatives of a captive Republican majority of the ultra-right populists can already be felt. The rules of the chamber, adopted on Monday, January 9, reflect some of the concessions to the “Maga” extremists (Make America Great Again) by Kevin McCarthy to be elected to the seat after fifteen votes. The core of this package concerns a number of rules the budget and therefore potentially the release of additional envelopes for Ukraine.
Freeze the amount in the budget for ten years
In particular, the new regulation intends to discourage the adoption of legislative packages that mix numerous and unrelated subjects, such as the one adopted on December 23, which amounts to 1,700 billion dollars (about 1,594 billion euros) . Now Republicans want to organize separate votes, especially on aid to Ukraine, and allow elected officials to propose amendments. Each new expenditure must be financed by a cut elsewhere in the budget.
Other promises made by Kevin McCarthy to the “rebels”, which are not found in this regulation, concern the increase in the ceiling of the public debt, conditional on budget cuts. New speaker would also have agreed to freeze the budget amount for ten years and cut military spending by 10%. A head-on collision threatens between the Democratic Senate and the Republican House of Representatives, with repeated conflicts over the funding of the federal state, under the threat of a shutdown of federal public services (shutdown).
“We have to look at the money sent to Ukraine”
This budget guerilla could weigh on future aid to Ukraine. “Everything is on the table, admitted Jim Jordan, a loyal supporter of former President Donald Trump, rallied to Kevin McCarthy. We need to look at the money sent to Ukraine and wonder if there is a better way to protect America. » A group of ultra-conservative elected officials believe that these amounts should be used within the country. “The conditions under which the Speaker of the Parliament was elected are dangerous for Ukraineanalyzes Jean-Marie Guéhenno, former Deputy Secretary-General of the UN. Republican Party ultraconservatives who believe the United States should not be involved in Ukraine will be in a better position to block spending bills that support Kiev. »
For now, the spending passed by the outgoing Congress ensures continued support for Ukraine in the first half of the year. The White House announced on Friday, January 6, a new tranche of military aid to Ukraine: $2.85 billion in weapons pulled from US Army stockpiles and 225 million orders for the defense industry, including 50 Bradley tanks. This package brings total US military aid to $24.2 billion since the war began on February 24, 2022.
In it washington posttwo former Republican officials, former US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, call on the US and its allies to “Provide the Ukrainians with the additional military equipment they need”. According to them, Vladimir Putin is convinced that time is on his side and that “Support for Ukraine will eventually erode and break down ».
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