reported<\/a> Tuesday.<\/p>\nSenate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized the House plan. \u201cI am deeply troubled that yesterday, House Republicans released a partisan and woefully inadequate package with no aid to Ukraine, no humanitarian assistance for Gaza, no funding for the Indo-Pacific, and in addition, poison pills that increase the deficit and help wealthy tax cheats avoid paying their fair share,\u201d he said in remarks on the Senate floor. \u201cIn short, it makes it much, much harder to pass aid for Israel. It\u2019s insulting that the hard right is openly trying to exploit the crisis in Israel to try and reward the ultra-rich.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018This is all one fight\u2019: <\/b>The White House\u2019s requested security funding package includes $61.4 billion for Ukraine, $14.3 billion for Israel, $13.6 billion for U.S. border security, $11.2 billion in humanitarian aid and more than $5 billion for allies in the Indo-Pacific region.<\/p>\n
At a hearing of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin III testified that the Biden administration\u2019s request is urgent and should move forward as a single package to help preserve U.S. global leadership.<\/p>\n
Story continues<\/button><\/p>\n\u201cWe now stand at a moment where many are again making the bet that we\u2019re too divided, we\u2019re too distracted at home to stay the course. That\u2019s what\u2019s at stake with President Biden\u2019s national security supplemental funding request,\u201d Blinken said during testimony that was interrupted repeatedly by anti-war protestors.<\/p>\n
He later added: \u201cTo put it succinctly, for our adversaries\u2014be they states or non-states\u2014this is all one fight. And we have to respond in a way that recognizes that. If we start to peel off pieces of this package, they\u2019ll see that, they\u2019ll understand that we are playing whack-a-mole while they cooperate increasingly and pose an ever-greater threat to our security as well as to that of our allies and partners.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bipartisan backing in the Senate:<\/b> Democrats and Republicans on the panel backed the idea of quickly passing a combined aid package, though some Republicans also called for additional funding for border security.<\/p>\n
Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, who chairs the Appropriations panel, agreed that the aid needs are intertwined. \u201cMake no mistake: We need to address all of these priorities as part of one package\u2014because the reality is these issues are all connected, and they are all urgent,\u201d she said in her opening remarks. \u201cThe Chinese government is watching how we respond to Putin\u2019s aggression in Ukraine. Putin is hoping the Hamas attack will give him an opening and distract the world from aiding Ukraine against his brutal invasion, and all of our adversaries are watching closely to see whether we have the vision to recognize how these crises are related, and the resolve to come together and respond forcefully to them. Our adversaries are cheering for dysfunction. So let\u2019s instead show them unity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Republicans remain divided over additional aid to Ukraine, though most GOP senators reportedly favor providing more funding. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been vocal in calling for continued support for Kyiv and did so again on Tuesday. And Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, also joined in calling for a combined package. \u201cSome have argued for decoupling funding to address these threats, and focusing only on the Iranian-backed terrorists, who massacred so many Israelis on October 7,\u201d she said. \u201cWe must recognize that our national security interests are being aggressively challenged by all these authoritarian actors in an effort to dismantle the international order that we established following World War II.\u201d<\/p>\n
Collins also emphasized that she and Murray plan to pass all 12 annual appropriations bills. \u201cAs former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates once told me, the most important action Congress can take to bolster our national security is to pass full-year appropriations bills to avoid the harm to military readiness that comes from short-term funding patches or sequestration,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The bottom line: <\/b>The administration\u2019s request has bipartisan support in the Senate, meaning that a showdown with the House GOP is likely coming soon.<\/p>\n
Like what you’re reading? Sign up for our free newsletter<\/span><\/a><\/b>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\nSource link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Top Democratic and Republican Senate appropriators expressed support Tuesday for the White House’s $106 billion emergency funding request including assistance to bothRead More ›<\/a><\/button><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4021"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4021\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}