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In literally the last minutes before midnight, in a surprising turn of events, the US Congress voted for a so-called stop-gap or Continuing Resolution (CR) to temporarily continue funding the US government until 17 November 2023. Many Republicans and their media Breitbart are happy, because the stop-gap measure is a huge win for Republicans. Some individualistic Republican Senators who still want to stop the irresponsible overspending by the US government, considered delaying the stop-gap motion in the Senate, but in the end decided to let it pass because they recognize it is a big win for Republicans.
Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah) and Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) had planned to employ parliamentary delay tactics on a CR [Continuing Resolution, the stop-gap measure] vote, but in a sign of how big a victory Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s bill is for conservatives, the duo has indicated they will allow for quick consideration of the bill in the Senate.
McCarthy and conservatives deserve to celebrate today. But the battle for more Ukraine funding will pick back up soon if the bill passes the Senate this weekend as expected. See this.
The all-important thing about the last-minute stop-gap bill is that $6 billion in aid for Ukraine is cut out of US funding until 17 November 2023. After all, when forced to choose, even Democrats prefer spending for the domestic population and for domestic US purposes over spending for Ukraine, a country far away.
In a bow to wide and growing Republican resistance to funding Kyiv’s war effort, McCarthy’s bill did not include any money for this in his temporary spending patch.
Democrats knew that if they opposed the bill, Republicans would claim they cared more about sending money to Ukraine than they did about funding the American government. See this.
For good reasons, Russia is happy and Ukraine is nervous. To keep the moods in Kiev a little bit up, Ukraine tries to remind itself that “already announced aid” for Ukraine will continue. With funding for Ukraine stopped for the time being, President Joe Biden and the Democrats hope to get a separate Ukraine spending bill. But a separate Ukraine spending bill may easily get substantially delayed, causing significant harm to the bankrupt Kiev régime. And even with a separate Ukraine spending bill, money for Ukraine may well be cut down from the $6 billion which Ukraine needs for just the short term.
In the political negotiations in Congress, for any money the Democrats want going to Ukraine, the Republicans will demand – and get – something inside the USA in return. How will Democrats respond if Republicans say: “Okay, you get $2 billion (not $6 billion) for Ukraine, but in return to keep overall spending down, we want a cut in one of your favorite spending programs of $4 billion?” No need to guess – in such a situation, Democrats will prioritize the needs of Americans. After all, only Americans pay US taxes and vote in US elections, not Ukrainians.
This is a huge and humiliating defeat not only for Ukraine, but also personally for Ukraine’s President Zelensky. On Zelensky’s previous visit to the US Congress, he was received as a hero and got standing ovations from the legislature. That is over now. On Zelensky’s last visit to Congress, a few days ago, he came with a failed “counteroffensive”. Zelensky’s reception in Congress was rather cool and he was not even allowed to speak to the entire body. And now we have the result: when it comes to making real choices, Congress does no longer prioritize sending more money to Ukraine.
This is the kiss of death both for Ukraine and for Zelensky personally. After some more haggling in the bazaar called Congress, we may see some new rounds of funding for Ukraine but the spigot of large funds to Ukraine is being turned off. Ukraine is broke. As the EU only supplies limited funds for Ukraine, the country is completely dependent on endless billions flowing continuously from the US. Any reduction from the needed $6 billion may have devastating consequences for Ukraine’s ability to continue to function.
There is still a real chance that the US government will be shut down with no funding after 17 November 2023 when the stop-gap measure expires. First of all, McCarthy may be ousted next week by individualistic House Republicans. McCarthy was only elected House Speaker after endless failed attempts to bridge political differences between Republicans.
If McCarthy is ousted, it is very doubtful whether the House will be able to agree on a new speaker for a long time. And if McCarthy is ousted, the absence of a House Speaker will imperil the prospects of any new funding bill for the US government after the stop-gap bill expires on 17 November 2023. Secondly, it remains uncertain whether Republicans and Democrats can agree at all on any budget for the coming fiscal year. The result of the drama surrounding the stop-gap bill enacted yesterday (30 September) is a devastating defeat brought upon President Biden by House Republicans:
The exclusion of the funding for Ukraine is a bruising loss for the president who has made support for Kyiv a priority throughout his term. See this.
Contrary to what President Biden baselessly declares, House Speaker McCarthy has not issued any guarantee whatsoever to put forward a separate Ukraine funding bill in the coming days or weeks. And with moves from individualistic Republicans in the House to oust McCarthy from the speakership, any separate bill pushed forward by McCarthy in the coming time to fund Ukraine with the $ 6 billion it has just been stripped off, seems uncertain, to say the least.
The Democrat media organ “The Hill” declares that the individualistic House Republican Matt Gaetz is a “loser” – but that is completely wrong. House Representative Matt Gaetz is the big winner, even though he is angry he didn’t win an even bigger victory by shutting down Biden’s government. Even though Rep. Gaetz (R-Fla.) did not stop the funding of the government, with the exclusion of funding for Ukraine, he did get a big fingerprint on the result – and with that Republicans dealt a big blow to President Biden and the Democrat war-party.
In Europe, support for Zelensky and Ukraine is crumbling as well. In Germany, both left-wing politician Sarah Waagenknecht and the right-wing party Alternative for Germany received enormous support from voters for their criticism of Germany’s policy towards Ukraine. Even as House Republicans in the US this weekend cut aid for Ukraine, in Europe, Slovakia got a new pro-Russian government which will also cut aid for Ukraine.
It has really been a bad weekend for President Biden and Ukraine.
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Karsten Riise is a Master of Science (Econ) from Copenhagen Business School and has a university degree in Spanish Culture and Languages from Copenhagen University. He is the former Senior Vice President Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Mercedes-Benz in Denmark and Sweden.
He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
Featured image is from InfoBrics
