The $95 Billion Aid Package Passed by the Senate Is Not the Will of Most Americans; the House Should Reject It

There’s a reason why President Joe Biden’s approval ratings are abysmal – the lowest ever of an incumbent president running for reelection in modern history – and it’s not just because of age.

If age is the only reason, this does not explain why the Democratic Party is experiencing a rift like never before in modern history, why some 100 members of Congress from the Democratic Party are calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and some several other hundreds in the House and Senate are not.

Biden’s unpopularity and the rift among Democrats in Congress has to do with – the establishment Democrats not listening to its grassroots supporters and grassroots supporters’ frustration over this.

This is why millennials and Gen Zers who voted for the Democratic Party last election are now seriously considering a third-party candidate. And even as the polls show this, there is arrogance by the Democratic Party establishment to plow ahead with business as usual.

Foreign policy debacle
The latest example of this unresponsiveness to the needs of grassroots Democrats (and grassroots Republicans) by the establishment is this week’s passage of a U.S. Senate bill of $95 billion in aid for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan. The legislation includes $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, $14 billion for Israel’s war with Hamas, $8 billion for Taiwan and partners in the Indo-Pacific to counter China, and $9.2 billion in humanitarian assistance for Gaza.

Our U.S. Senators Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono supported this funding bill. Twenty-two Senate Republicans voted for the package, along with almost all Democratic lawmakers, barring Peter Welch of Vermont, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who voted against it. The 70-29 vote put an end to nearly a week of floor discussion and four months of back-and-forth over President Joe Biden’s October appeal to Congress to further support Ukraine.

The time it took to pass this bill as well as the border security language previously included that was taken out indicate that there was behind the scenes arm-twisting and hard-ball politicking to get senators on board. Still, the bill passed.  It now needs to pass the House of Representatives, where it’s likely to face stiff opposition.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said Putin “will regret the day he questioned America’s resolve.”

His rhetoric is of the same ilk as those expressed by politicians to convince Americans why we should invade Iraq, eventually known to be under false pretenses, and over a million deaths and $1.1 trillion dollars spent over the duration of nearly two decades.

The only difference is that Schumer is a Democrat while then it was a Republican in Bush who led us down that path that most Americans agree today was not the right thing to do.

But what Schumer, Biden and the Bushes represent is an establishment focused on the same foreign policy of empire and dominance by the U.S. in a vastly changing world where cooperation is increasingly needed considering the rise of co-global powers in BRICS.

Grassroots Democrats and Republicans, particularly among millennials and Gen Z, believe it’s time to be investing in our country, our people, our infrastructure, our education, our affordable housing needs, our healthcare and the myriad of other needs we Americans have and not be sending billions upon billions in foreign aid for military conflict.

Security and securing the U.S. global interests, our senators might say are reasons to carry on these proxy wars in Ukraine and Israel. But is it really safer for us that we are engaged in provocation instead of cooperation? A powerful message has already been sent to Putin that NATO would not allow expansion. And is bombing (the U.S. supplying Israel with weapons) Gaza that’s already in a humanitarian crisis helping to stop terror or is it actually inspiring terror?

More on Russia — many military analysts are already saying that the war in Ukraine is over. We have an impasse. We see that the U.S. sanctions on Russia is not working. Russia posted among the highest GDPs in Europe last year (BRICS picked up the slack and Europe continues to trade heavily with Russia) and Russia is now trading in the Yuan and Ruble (previously traded in U.S. Dollars) which only hurts the U.S.

It’s a no brainer that Russia will survive economically and militarily in this conflict. This is supported by impartial benchmarks. Therefore, at this stage it’s in the best interests of Americans that the U.S. be brokering a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine. Americans should also be demanding that our politicians tell us what the end goal for the U.S. in our support for Ukraine is. Has any politician given the American people a straight, concrete answer? No.

Instead, our senators send Ukraine billions upon billions more in aid as we see our own American cities fall further behind other advanced cities like Tokyo, Singapore, Dubai and others.

It’s a policy choice that we’ve allowed other global cities to surpass our own urban cores that need modernization.  It’s a policy choice that we spend billions, trillions even, to be sent abroad for wars and conflict that not only puts our country behind others in many areas like education, but our global security remains the same. These terror groups that we’ve fought against are still in the Middle East. Where is the gain? Where is the security?

Certainly, halting militarism is not the answer and not what Americans want. What Americans want is a balanced approach, investing in our military (not the current astronomical spending that outpaces the nine other countries’ military budgets behind us combined), but also investing in the American people and our cities.

Lastly, opinion polls show that a majority of Americans (both Democrat and Republican) over 60% want a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Funding billions more to Israel is not listening to Americans, but rather kowtowing to special interest groups who always seem to think they know what’s best for Americans despite what we articulate.

We encourage the U.S House, historically known as being more responsive to the will of the people, will do the right thing, listen to the grassroots Democrats and Republicans, and vote down this colossal aid package to Ukraine and Israel. It’s time that we reprioritize our future.