Johnson submits separate bills to help Israel and Ukraine
16 April 2024 10:05
Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson has submitted four security bills instead of one: separate ones on aid to Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, as well as other national security issues. This was reported by The Hill, according to Komersant ukrainskyi 
“My phone was on fire over the weekend, everyone was telling me about all their ideas. There was a consensus on all of them, and it was that my colleagues really wanted to vote on these measures separately, not together, as the Senate did. It’s done,”
– johnson said.
This way, MPs will be able to choose what to support, and this should supposedly simplify the adoption of long-needed decisions. However, this decision was disappointing for many Republicans, as they had been telling their constituents for six months that they would vote for any aid only in a package with national security measures on the Mexican border.
It is not yet known what the Ukraine bill will contain. However, the fourth document related to national security, according to Johnson, will include a proposal to pay for aid to Ukraine by seizing Russian assets and providing part of the aid in the form of loans.
The documents are due to be released today. According to the rules, this means that they will be voted on no earlier than Friday. If “something goes wrong”, the issue of aid to Ukraine will be postponed again for an indefinite period of time, as the US Congress will not be in session next week.
“They haven’t come up with [the bills] yet, and we’re not in time. That’s why I’m very sceptical. Ukraine is on life support, and here they seem to be preparing to pull the plug,”
– said Democratic Congressman Adam Smith of the Defence Committee.
The US Congress has been unable to make a decision on military aid to Ukraine since the autumn of 2023. on 13 February, the upper house of parliament, the Senate, passed a bill. The document provides for assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan totalling $95.34 billion, of which $61 billion is earmarked for Ukraine. Since then, the bill has been stalled in the lower House of Representatives, where Republicans refuse to vote for aid to Ukraine, and Republican Speaker Mike Johnson has not put the document to a vote.
