233
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
233 points (96.4% liked)
politics
19120 readers
2621 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Correct me if I am wrong, but didn't President Biden get lend-lease authority at some point previous to this, and did he not fail to spend or use that authority as much as he could have?
You're not wrong, though the act is expired now. So they would have to repass it if they want to give aid to Ukraine that way. Honestly though that act was passed more symbolically than practically for its WWII connotations. Saddling Ukraine with even more debt through lend lease isn't a great way to support them long term. If all we had done was loans up to this point they'd have had to add nearly the current gdp of their countries worth to make up for the aid they received so far. They shouldn't have to burden all the monetary costs in addition to their loss of life and their half destroyed country while they're checking Putin's imperialist ambitions, and doing a service for especially Europe but the whole world.
Just like the US has been trying to hurt the Russian economy, they're also trying to prop up the Ukrainian one. Imposing large debts on their economy will not help, they're struggling with the funds to repair critical infrastructure deliberately destroyed by Russia and keep their military running, struggling to keep lines of credit open for more basic things. It's hard to keep your economy running and collect taxes with wide spread bombing of civilian areas across the country (with much of your former economic powerhouse areas destroyed or occupied by Russia). The original lend lease was more of a pretext than anything anyways (look I'm not aiding you, I'm not in the war, it's just a loan), and in the end much of that debt was forgiven so wasn't even really a loan, and we ended up giving a ton more aid on top of it, besides the obvious like the US eventually entering the war, this included the Marshall plan, etc.
All of this is to say, sure re pass lend lease for the flexibility too, but right now there's no way for the US to provide additional monetary aid unless congress acts.
Lend/lease never hits the books. Most of the lend/lease of WWII was forgiven.
Yeah that's what I'm saying, it's a pretext. Initially we wanted to pretend we weren't giving aid to the allies in WWII. Though it'd be inaccurate to say it never hits the books. Portions of it were repaid after WWII. You'd still need another act to forgive that debt though, as far as I'm aware there's no provision in the law for the president to unilaterally forgive the debt. So you'd have to ask congress, and be right back where you started. And why go through all the hoops? Just allot the aid instead of hurting Ukraine's credit for no reason for a while if you're planning on eventually forgiving it. It'd still be nice to have the option to kind of paper over any funding gaps like what's happening right now, shame that now is when it's expired otherwise they could be using it as a stop gap. But I suspect that's why the Republicans chose now.
You are wrong.
Go ahead correct me, and stop being silly.
no