The latest round of AP/NORC polling indicates a slight shift if the public’s feelings about American spending on the war in Ukraine. Coming primarily from Republicans, there was a mild increase in the number of people who said that we’re spending “about the right amount” on aid for that country, but it’s still only 38%. And nearly half (45%) say we are spending too much on what has dragged out into a seemingly endless war. This news comes as Joe Biden’s massive bill proposing even more aid for Ukraine, along with Israel and a few other items remains bogged down in the House. It’s unclear if the bill could pass today even if Speaker Mike Johnson decided to bring it to the floor for a vote. So something is going to have to give here sooner or later. (AP)

As lawmakers in Washington weigh sending billions more in federal support to Kyiv to help fight off Russian aggression, close to half of the U.S. public thinks the country is spending too much on aid to Ukraine, according to polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Those sentiments, driven primarily by Republicans, help explain the hardening opposition among conservative GOP lawmakers on Capitol Hill who are rebuffing efforts from President Joe Biden to approve a new tranche of Ukraine aid, arguing that the money would be better spent for domestic priorities.

Yet opposition to aid is down slightly from where it was a month ago in another AP-NORC poll. Now, 45% say the U.S. government is spending too much on aid to Ukraine in the war against Russia, compared with 52% in October.

One area where the Democrats and the Biden administration are not budging is the call for a full audit of all of the money that’s been sent to Ukraine thus far and specifics as to where the next round would go. That’s just a direct slap in the face to the American public. It doesn’t matter if this spending proposal is unpopular with the public. You have no right to any sort of accounting for the funds. Even though it’s your money they are spending, the peasants are expected to remain quiet and accept that everything has been handled correctly and in your best interests.

The idea that we’re spending too much on Ukraine is only a small subset of the reality that we’re spending far too much on everything. We allowed ourselves to be lured into a massive binge of deficit spending at the start of the pandemic under President Trump, but even after things returned mostly to normal, Biden and the Democrats have never taken their foot off the gas. We’ve printed more than $7 trillion in magical money just since Joe Biden took office. The results have been predictably horrible. Interest rates keep rising and rising along with the price of just about everything. More and more Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck and burning through whatever meager savings they might have had. This situation isn’t sustainable and the system will simply collapse sooner or later.

Perhaps the real question shouldn’t be whether we can afford another $106 billion for Ukraine and other purposes. We should be looking at the entire budget and finding places to give it a significant haircut. That’s the only way that inflation will ease and rates will come down. But the politicians in the swamp have gotten used to giving away “free stuff” because they believe it will keep them in power longer. Congress needs to start treating the budget the same way that families across the country are forced to deal with their own household budgets. When there is less money to work with, sacrifices have to be made and some expenses will need to be postponed. Slashing that aid package in half might be a good start, but there are plenty of other places where savings could be found. The House already proposed eliminating the recent expansions to the IRS, though the Democrats bucked the idea. Lots of other agencies could find a way to get by with a bit less. Before you know it, those savings would start adding up and we might even approach a break-even point. Sadly, given the nature of the current crew in the swamp, that’s probably little more than a pipe dream.