Subject: Re: Why the border bill will fail
"When it sunsets, do we get our Ukraine money back?"

It should be noted that this is another misrepresentation on the right about Ukraine spending.

First of all, much of the Ukraine spending is actually a refresh of U.S. military supplies. We send Ukraine the old stuff that has been sitting around for decades and build newer, more modern stuff to replace it. For example, a few weeks ago my wife and I bought a new to us (2021 model) $35,000 car. We gave our really old (2012 model) car to my nephew. So while we certainly spent $35,000 on a new car and that is reflected in our budget spending, it isn't like we gave our nephew a $35,000 car. We gave him one worth far less. We benefitted greatly from that $35,000 car expenditure just like the U.S. military benefits greatly from the money spent on Ukraine. The U.S. military now has newer, better missiles that can be fired from our HIMARS systems than the ones we had before the spending. It isn't like the U.S. is just giving $60 billion dollars in military stuff to Ukraine. The U.S. is benefiting as well.

Second of all, much of the Ukraine spending is spent building up U.S. capacity to produce weapons. Right now if the U.S. got into a shooting war with a near peer army the U.S. would run out of shells, missiles, bombs, and bullets within a few weeks. Due to decades of not engaging in any conflicts other than police actions, the capacity to build munitions in the U.S. has withered. It was hard to justify building new munitions when we had so many sitting in storage, so production lines closed. Some of the spending in this bill actually opens up new lines to produce shells. It is useless to have all of these nice high tech fighter planes, artillery, drones, submarines, and carriers, if you can't build enough munitions fast enough to actually arm them in a real conflict.

Third of all, nearly all of that spending goes right back here into the U.S. economy. It goes to pay the production line workers producing the new munitions right here in the U.S.

Fourth (and most importantly) of all, when the bill sunsets the immigration part, we will still be benefiting greatly from the money spent on Ukraine. Russia's military has been devastated in Ukraine. Most of the military advances they now making are done through brute force instead of military superiority. They just send in more troops knowing they will mostly get slaughtered but a few will survive and capture territory. It is also starting to have a negative effect on Russia's economy. Money isn't being spent on investing in infrastructure, and such. Furthermore, the mounting war casualties are becoming a huge production drain on Russia's economy. When a 25 year old conscripted Russian soldier is killed in Ukraine, that means he isn't back home doing something economically productive (like growing grain, building a car, or programming a computer). This will have long term consequences for Russia's economy. The longer that Ukraine can keep up their defenses, the more Russia will suffer and will be unable to rebuild its military.

Devastating the military and economy of one of the nation's most dangerous enemies is quite valuable. Having Russia's military crippled now in Ukraine means that the U.S. won't have to do it in the future when Putin invades one of the NATO Baltic states. It would be far more expensive in money and U.S. lives defending NATO then supporting Ukraine.