The White House will reportedly issue a $100 billion emergency funding request to Congress.
The emergency funding request will offer nearly $61 billion in aid to Ukraine and $14 billion to Israel. Additionally, the emergency request would grant $14 billion to personnel and operations at the southern border and $2 billion for Indo-Pacific security assistance. White House officials are hopeful the request covers issues pertinent to Democrats and Republicans and entices them to work together to approve the proposal.
“The world is watching and the American people rightly expect their leaders to come together and deliver on these priorities, and I urge Congress to address them as part of a comprehensive, bipartisan agreement in the weeks ahead,” United States Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young said.
However, it doesn’t appear that all members of Congress will be on board with a $100 billion emergency funding request from President Joe Biden. Senator Tom Cotton has said that the request would be “dead on arrival” if it were to make it to the Senate.
“President Biden’s slush fund proposal is dead on arrival, just like his budgets,” Cotton said.
“We will not spend, for example, $3.5 billion to address the ‘potential needs of Gazans.”
Despite pushback from Cotton, the White House remains optimistic that the request would be approved.
“You’ve already seen a commitment from this administration, in making sure humanitarian aid gets to those in Gaza, so we imagine that aid will continue, robustly as Congress funds more humanitarian aid,” Young stated.
“But that account has flexibility to allow State and USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development] to assess what is happening on the ground around the globe and respond with critical dollars to ensure that people have the things that they need to survive these conflicts in other scenarios across the globe.”
