If Republicans are dead-set on sending billions more taxpayer dollars to Ukraine, prolonging a devastating war that is likely to end with Russia gaining some land, they can at least do us all the courtesy of being honest. Instead, they’re trying to deceive everyone by presenting the overseas aid as a “loan,” as if the small nation, facing an estimated half-trillion in destruction, will ever be able to repay the suckers who agree to such a scam.
As of late last month, the World Bank calculated that the cost of “reconstruction and recovery” for Ukraine is $411 billion. That figure is increasing constantly. Americans have already sent over $113 billion, with no conditions, to Washington’s favored foreign charity case, and the White House is urging that we send another $60 billion— at least.
It’s offensive enough that both Democrats and Republicans insist that providing large amounts of money for a conflict 5,000 miles away is significantly more important than addressing the masses of impoverished migrants arriving across the southern border. But upon realizing just how unpopular their preference for Ukraine is, Republicans in Washington are trying to deceive their own voters by suggesting the money isn’t a gift because it will be a loan.
Don’t you see, you dummies?! Loans must be paid back in full! It’s fine! Shut up!
“Even President Trump has talked about the loan concept where we set up— we’re not just giving foreign aid,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said Sunday on Fox News, stumbling over what he knew was untrue. “We’re setting it up in a relationship where they can provide it back to us when the time is right.”
He’s at least not lying about Trump also making the pitch. “It can be loaned on extraordinarily good terms,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform in February, “like no interest and an unlimited life…” (“When the time is right” is sometimes referred to as “unlimited life.”)
South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham has proposed a “no-interest, waivable” loan.
A “loan” that comes with no interest and no repayment deadline, and can ultimately be forgiven for any reason at all is, by definition, not a loan. It’s free money. And taxpayers have been taken for that ride countless times already.
At the very end of his second term in office, Bill Clinton forced U.S. taxpayers to swallow half a billion dollars in foreign debt total. Before that, George Bush Sr. had taxpayers swallow several billions in debt held by Poland and Egypt. (Delightfully for him, Clinton probably soaked up some of that back up in foreign-sponsored Clinton Foundation “speeches.”)
Congressional leaders get all wet and messy at the very sight of Volodymyr Zelensky(yyy) in his camo costume. Why would anyone trust them to collect repayment from him? They would never. And we don’t even know what’s going to happen to him tomorrow, let alone “when the time is right” for him to get his first bill.
So, Mike Johnson, Donald Trump, Lindsey Graham, and all the rest: If you’re so devoted to pushing more money to Ukraine, just say so. Don’t insult us all by calling it a loan when it’s not.
