Colorado Democrat vows to shut down government if Ukraine doesn’t get more money

by WorldTribune Staff, October 5, 2023

Colorado Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet has threatened to shut down the government if Ukraine does not get billions more of U.S. taxpayer dollars.

Sen. Michael Bennet / C-SPAN

During Wednesday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Katy Tur Reports,” Tur asked Bennet, “Are you ready to hold up a bill that comes to the Senate that does not include that Ukraine funding, potentially to shut down the government?”

Bennet responded: “I definitely am. I definitely am. I said on Saturday that my mom, she’s a Polish Jew, she was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1938, it’s very easy to see from her perspective, she survived — with the perspective of the 16 million people that were killed in Ukraine and Poland during World War II, how they get forgotten by politicians here that seem to be concerned with a different set of imperatives. And Katy, I don’t think this is a moment for politics. It’s not a question of when we go home, do we stay here, do we make a trade for this, or do we make a trade for that. … I think that we’ve given a little over $70 billion, which is less than what the Europeans have put in this war.”

Bennet was about $43 billion short on his estimate. The funding of Ukraine’s war effort by the U.S. thus far has amounted to $113 billion in security, economic and humanitarian aid since the Russian invasion, according to reports from several outlets, including leftist legacy media.

He is also off on Europe giving more. The 27-country European Union has sent about $42.2 billion in aid, including more than $17.8 billion from Germany and $5.9 billion through EU institutions, according to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy’s Ukraine Support Tracker. Other top European contributors include Denmark at $3.7 billion, Poland at $3.1 billion, and the Netherlands at $2.6 billion.

Great Britain, which is no longer in the EU, has pledged nearly $6.9 billion worth of military support for Ukraine. Norway, which is also outside the EU, has committed nearly $3.9 billion.

The spending bill passed on Saturday that averted a government shutdown did not include billions more in assistance to Ukraine.


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