Senate Republican criticizes Chamber for approving foreign aid projects: spending money ‘we don’t have’

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) criticized the House for passing foreign aid bills, arguing that Congress is spending money we “don’t have” and that the U.S. should focus on securing its own borders.

“We are going to mortgage and loot more of our children’s future, more than $100 billion,” Johnson said during his Saturday morning appearance on NewsNation. “We spend close to US$900 billion on defense, but whenever there is some type of defense action it seems like we need to take additional action.

“I think what most of us have been advocating is that most Americans believe we should secure our own border before we spend over $100 billion that we don’t have on our children’s future to help other people protect their its borders,” he said. he said.

Johnson’s comments on “NewsNation Live” came just hours before the lower house officially approved a $95 billion foreign aid package, after months of intense debate. The foreign aid package includes about $61 billion for Ukraine, $26 billion for Israel, humanitarian aid for civilians in Gaza and other war-torn areas, and $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific region. It also includes other national security measures, including a potential ban on TikTok.

Although Johnson said there is great “sympathy” both for Ukrainians defending their country against Russia’s invasion and for Israel’s right to defend itself, he expressed concern about not being able to debate the aid in the Senate.

“We will not have the opportunity to debate this, we will not have the opportunity to debate the humanitarian aid that will flow to Hamas,” Johnson said.

Johnson said he was worried about what was happening to people in Ukraine, but also added that there was “no way” Russian President Vladimir Putin could lose the war.

“My view on Ukraine has not always been, but certainly over the last year, since this thing has turned into a bloody standoff, a proxy war between the West and Russia,” Johnson said.

“So simply wasting $60 billion to fuel the flames of this bloody standoff doesn’t make much sense to me,” he later added.

The Wisconsin senator concluded he would not support the package when the Upper House took it up.

“So there’s a lot of bad things in these bills, the way they’re being cobbled together here, I’m not going to support them,” he said.