For the third time, the Biden administration has used a workaround built in to the law to duck congressional oversight of overseas arms sales. That’s truly a shame.
This time, it was used to sell Israel more ammunition for its tanks in its offensive against Hamas; the prior two times, it was to supply Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s illegal invasion. While these two countries are certainly worthy of American support, the causes shouldn’t exempt these sales from congressional oversight. Indeed, we ought to involve Congress in overseas weapons sales or transfers before they’re done under most circumstances; they should at minimum be given the opportunity to review them after the fact and block further sales.
It’s understandable that the Biden administration has chosen to work around Congress in all three of these instances.
The current Congress is so dysfunctional that it can barely manage do anything. This is a body that, faced with the most challenging global security environment in decades, chose to paralyze itself for weeks by ousting its speaker for no good reason – with nobody lined up to take his place. Its members have consistently barely been able to perform their most basic duty – keeping the federal government funded and functioning. So, while the Biden administration should have run these sales through Congress, Congress can blame itself for the administration’s failure to do so.
The problem here is that, on both sides of the aisle, a minority of each party can block – or at least slow down or curtail – the overwhelming desire of the majority of Congress. When it comes to sending further aid to Ukraine, a vocal minority faction of the Republican Party opposes it completely; sadly, the new speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, is entirely too willing to listen to that faction. There’s no doubt that if a standalone package to aid Ukraine were put on the floor, it would have overwhelming bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate.
Unfortunately, in both the House and Senate, Republicans are blocking that kind of straightforward vote. Instead, knowing that it’s a top priority for the administration, they’re holding further aid to Ukraine hostage to increasing border security. While they’re correct to prioritize that issue, they shouldn’t be linking it to Ukraine aid – that only undermines our national security and aides the Kremlin. Instead, they ought to separate the two unrelated issues, while continuing to pursue whatever deal they can reach with the administration on border security. That’s what responsible governing would look like.
When it comes to aiding Israel, Republicans are playing political games as well – even though they overwhelmingly support aid to Israel.
The aid package passed by House Republicans for Israel was paid for by cutting funding to the Internal Revenue Service. While it may be worth revisiting the White House’s increase in spending on the IRS, it’s not responsible governing to tie it to the aid of one of our closest allies as it faces down an existential threat.
Johnson knew that adding the IRS cuts to the Israeli aid bill was a poison pill; he did so merely to pander to the extreme wing of the Republican Party that put him in office. This wasn’t just poor governing, it was lousy politics; adding the IRS provision gave any Democrat a good excuse to vote against the bill. If he’d advanced a clean bill to aid Israel to the floor, it would have backed Democrats in to a corner, forcing the extreme left to vote against aiding Israel on its merits.
Republicans aren’t the only ones playing political games with national security. The White House is, too. That internal Democratic rift is, no doubt, part of the reason that Biden chose to bypass congressional authorization for this arms sale to Israel. It’s not just that it was vital to get weapons to Israel quickly; it was politically convenient for Democrats to avoid a vote and debate on the issue.
Similarly, Democrats have linked together three separate issues – aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan – in order to avoid tougher individual votes. With the precarious state of the world today, it’s imperative that both parties stop playing political games with national security and get these measures to the floor on their own. Failing to do so makes us look weak and dysfunctional to our friends and allies – and further emboldens dictators and terrorists across the globe.
Jim Fossel, a conservative activist from Gardiner, worked for Sen. Susan Collins. He can be contacted at:
jwfossel@gmail.com
Twitter: @jimfossel
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