Billions in US Aid to Ukraine Costs Each American Household $900, Economist Says

US aid to Ukraine has cost every American household hundreds of dollars, according to Heritage Foundation budget expert Richard Stern.

“The formal aid packages alone amount to a staggering $113 billion—roughly $900 per American household and almost 12 times the spending cuts promised by House leadership in the annual spending bills,” Stern told The Daily Signal.

“As with all new federal spending,” Stern added.

“This $113 billion spending spree was added to our national debt and will cost more than $300 in interest costs per household over the decade. Of course, we’ve given more aid than that but haven’t paid the bill on it yet,”he said.

Since Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Congress has greenlighted over $113 billion in “aid and military assistance to support the Ukrainian government and allied nations.”

“As the war in Ukraine becomes a prolonged conflict, Americans are rightly growing skeptical of sending more taxpayer dollars and equipment from our depleted armory,” Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts told The Daily Signal.

“Washington has failed to address their concerns, explain our nation’s strategy in the war, or enact basic oversight for our aid,” Roberts said.

“If Congress can’t fix those fundamental issues, they have no business sending more money into the fog of war.”

The US had about 127.9 million households during the fiscal year 2022, making the estimated cost for aid to Ukraine $884 per American household.

As The Daily Fetched reported earlier this week, Joe Biden is poised to ask Congress for another eye-watering $10 billion Ukraine aid package, according to reports.

Now, Biden’s looming request, which could exceed “north of $10 billion,” comes as Ukraine continues its slow-moving counteroffensive against Russia as NATO countries and the US pledged even more support.

The Army’s acquisition chief said on Monday that the Department of Defense was in the process of creating a Ukraine funding package for lawmakers to consider

The new package will replenish American weapon stockpiles, which have since been completed after providing munitions to Ukraine’s conflict with Russia.

“Estimates of what the administration will request vary wildly from $10 billion to $70 billion, which demonstrates that no one knows what to request because they don’t know what they will do with it,” Heritage Foundation national security expert Victoria Coates told The Daily Signal in an email.

“Until we get clarity on a strategy, I would be very cautious about voting in support,” said Coates, vice president of Heritage’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy.

Ryan Walker, the acting executive director of Heritage Action for America, noted that the billions in aid to Ukraine come as Americans struggle with soaring consumer prices.

“Inflation remains high, families are struggling to make ends meet, and the credit rating for the United States was just downgraded,” Walker said.

“Still, the Biden administration is demanding that American taxpayers spend billions more of their hard-earned money to blindly fund another international conflict without any clearly defined U.S. strategy, timeline, or oversight of aid,” he added.

Walker also added:

Before Congress can even consider the idea of additional aid, they must address the demands of the American people, which include public accounting of how previous funding has already been spent, a clearly articulated plan for American involvement and liability for their paychecks, impacts on the American military and its ability to confront adversaries, and assurances of further commitments from European partners.

Lastly, the American people do not want to see this aid jammed through with budget gimmicks. Instead, they want these minimum requirements met and any legislation to be considered on its own merits as standalone legislation and paid for without sending American families further into debt. Biden’s request falls flat on nearly all of these demands.

However, a growing majority of Republican and independent voters now oppose additional aid to Ukraine, according to polling data.

READ: Orbán Warns Ukraine War Could Go Nuclear: “Russia Cannot Be Defeated”