Paul stalls Senate approval of $40 billion Ukraine deal
WASHINGTON » Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul defied leaders of both parties Thursday and singlehandedly delayed until next week Senate approval of an additional $40 billion to help Ukraine and its allies withstand Russia’s 3month-old invasion.
With the Senate poised to debate and vote on the package of military and economic aid, Paul denied leaders the unanimous agreement they needed to proceed. The bipartisan measure, backed by President Joe Biden, underscores U.S. determination to reinforce its support for Ukraine’s outnumbered forces.
The legislation has been approved overwhelmingly by the House and has strong bipartisan support in the Senate. Final passage is not in doubt.
Even so, Paul’s objection was an audacious departure from an overwhelming sentiment in Congress that quickly helping Ukraine was urgent, for that nation’s prospects of withstanding Vladimir Putin’s brutal attack and for discouraging the Russian president from escalating or widening the war.
It was also a brazen rebellion against his fellow Kentucky Republican, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Mcconnell began Thursday’s session by saying senators from “both sides” — meaning Republicans and Democrats — needed to “help us pass this urgent funding bill today,” gesturing emphatically as he said “today.”
Paul, a libertarian who often opposes U.S. intervention abroad, said he wanted language inserted into the bill, without a vote, that would have an inspector general scrutinize the new spending. He has a long history of demanding lastminute changes by holding up or threatening to delay bills on the brink of passage, including measures dealing with lynching, sanctioning Russia, preventing a federal shutdown, the defense budget, government surveillance and providing health care to the Sept. 11 attack first responders.
Democrats and Mcconnell opposed Paul’s push and offered to have a vote on his language. Paul was likely to lose that vote and rejected the offer.
Paul, who unsuccessfully sought his party’s 2016 presidential nomination, argued that the added spending was more than the U.S. spends on many domestic programs, was comparable to Russia’s entire defense budget and would deepen federal deficits and worsen inflation. Last year’s budget deficit was almost $2.8 trillion but is likely headed downward, and the bill’s spending is less than two-tenths of 1% the size of the U.S. economy, suggesting its impact on inflation would be negligible.
“No matter how sympathetic the cause, my oath of office is to the national security of the United States of America,” Paul said. “We cannot save Ukraine by dooming the U.S. economy.”
Democrats said they were objecting to Paul’s plan because it would expand the powers of an existing inspector general whose current purview is limited to Afghanistan.
“It’s clear, from the junior senator from Kentucky’s remarks, he doesn’t want to aid Ukraine,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., “All he will accomplish with his actions here today is to delay that aid, not to stop it.”
Underscoring their joint desire to approve the bill, Schumer and Mcconnell stood nearly side by side as they tried pushing the legislation forward.
The House voted 368-57 on Tuesday to approve the measure. All Democrats and most Republicans backed it, although every “no” vote came from the GOP. The bipartisan backing for Ukraine has been partly driven by accounts of Russian atrocities against Ukrainian civilians that have been impossible to ignore. It also reflects strategic concerns about letting Putin seize European territory unanswered.
The latest bill, when added to the $13.6 billion Congress approved in March, would push American aid to the region well above $50 billion. For perspective, that would total $6 billion more than the U.S. spent on military and economic aid around the world in 2019, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service.