According to Senator Rand Paul, the movement to stop the massive flow of aid dollars and equipment from America to the Ukrainians is no longer a fringe movement within the GOP and is instead growing quickly in prominence and power as Republicans wake up to the massive cost of the war so far, particularly after other fiscal issues are taken into account.
Sen. Paul spoke on the matter to Fox News Digital before the Ukraine funding situation, among other things, led to the ouster of Rep. Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House, saying that America just doesn’t have the financial resources to be spending tens upon tens of billions of dollars on propping up another country, particularly given the fiscal situation at home.
“We have problems funding Social Security, we have problems funding, Medicare, Medicaid, all the things that have already been promised to our people we have trouble funding, and we just don’t have extra money just to be sending to another country,” Sen. Paul told Fox News Digital.
Continuing, Sen. Paul added that what really matters here will be how the House GOP Caucus views the matter generally, as if half of the caucus doesn’t want to deal with an issue, it won’t be brought up. Thus, if half the caucus were against Ukraine funding, it could be tabled indefinitely.
Explaining that aspect of the situation, Sen. Paul said, “The Republican Conference in the house has a rule, that if a majority of the Republican Conference is for something or against something, the speaker can’t bring it up by rule.”
He added, “I think it’s a good question for some of the opponents on the House side. Will the conference rule hold that will prevent [the speaker] from bringing it up? Because if it does, that ends up being perhaps a deal killer on this as it moves forward.”
That majority of the GOP against Ukraine funding could be closer to forming than it might seem at first glance. For example, Rep. Chip Roy recently said in an interview with Sean Hannity that he won’t support any funding heading to Ukraine until America’s fiscal house is put in order.
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“Let’s be very clear: there’s going to be a lot coming at us over the next 45 days. We need to get the appropriations bills done under the debt ceiling deal, get spending down, and we need to make sure that not $1 is going to Ukraine, not $1 is going to Ukraine unless we do our job is secure the border first and unless we pay for anything we do and unless we get appropriations done. And even then, I’m not interested in continuing to fund a proxy war, but we’ve got to do our job to leverage that to force change,” he said.
Outside of the national debt issue, one issue the GOP has with Ukraine funding is corruption in the county. Speaking on that, Sen. Paul said, “I think it’s obscene to do it [send more aid] without an inspector general in place. There’s still a healthy amount of corruption in Ukraine.”