Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) slammed the Biden administration for not producing a “full crosscutting report” on Ukraine funding for Congress by the deadline date and is calling for the president to produce an “immediate plan” that would end the Ukraine conflict and also benefit American national security interests.
“Over a month ago, Congress appropriated billions in additional security assistance for the war in Ukraine. When President Biden signed that bill into law, he pledged that his administration would deliver a report detailing our financial commitment to this conflict,” Vance said in a statement.
However, as the Buckeye State senator noted, President Joe Biden’s administration “flagrantly ignored its own obligation to transparency” by not providing the report on time.
Vance was referring to the letter he led with a group of House and Senate lawmakers to the White House Office of Management and Budget to request a “full crosscutting report” that includes “U.S. government-wide expenditures for Ukraine and ‘countries impacted by the situation in Ukraine’ since February 24, 2022.” The Office of Management and Budget failed to share a report with Congress and the American people on time by Tuesday’s deadline — February 7.
With this, Vance declared in his Wednesday statement that Biden “must lay out a clear plan for ending the conflict in a way that advances our national security interests” before spending “another taxpayer dollar in Ukraine.”
“No more blank checks. It is past time for the President to tell the American people how this comes to an end,” he added.
Additionally, following Ukraine getting at least $114 billion in funding since last year and the United States sending supplies to Ukraine, United States lawmakers have started sounding alarms about how the U.S. defense industrial base will soon face challenges in replenishing supplies of certain types of weapons.
A report published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) indicated that the U.S. could run out of critical weapons, such as long-range precision-guided munitions, within a week of the start of a war in the Taiwan Strait. Roll Call noted of the report:
The report stresses that U.S. aid to Ukraine is not the problem in and of itself, since a war in the Indo-Pacific would largely require different types of weapons. But the sheer number of munitions required to sustain Ukraine — where the U.S. is not even actively involved — clarifies how quickly stockpiles could be depleted if another war broke out.
CSIS International Security Program director Seth G. Jones, who authored the report, noted, “The war in Ukraine has shown us that our industrial base is not prepared. It’s not producing the kinds of munitions and materiel we need for a conventional war and for conventional deterrence. So, you know, it’s a wake-up call.”
Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.
