Mark F. Cancian and Chris H. Park
After months of intense congressional debate, Congress passed and the president signed into law a $61 billion aid package for Ukraine. The legislation gives the president nearly everything he wanted, which is surprising given the drama in the Republican House caucus. The new legislation brings the total U.S. commitment to $175 billion since the beginning of the invasion. It will produce an immediate surge in deliveries of military equipment, which had fallen to about 10 percent of what they had been last year. Because of the delay, another funding package will not be needed until January. That pushes it past the presidential campaign. Despite all this good news, a cloud hangs on the horizon: How does Ukraine plan on winning this war?
Q1: What is included in the package?
A1: The $61 billion of the Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2024 falls into six categories.
Military equipment for Ukraine ($25.7 billion) comprises the largest part of the funding and does three things. First, it replaces equipment that has been or will be sent to Ukraine through presidential drawdown authority (PDA) ($13.4 billion). This authority allows the president to take weapons and munitions from U.S. stockpiles and send them to Ukraine. Although there is no statutory requirement to replace the equipment, Congress has provided funding to do so. If it had not, the resulting shortfalls would have badly hurt U.S. readiness.
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