The White House has said President Biden would veto House Republicans’ proposed $14.3 billion Israel aid bill over its Internal Revenue Service (IRS) budget cuts and exclusion of assistance for Ukraine.
A statement of administration policy on the House’s bill notes Biden “strongly supports” providing aid to Israel, while he “strongly opposes” the legislation’s lack of funding for humanitarian assistance and additional funding priorities detailed in the recent $106 billion supplemental spending request.
“But rather than putting forward a package that strengthens American national security in a bipartisan way, the bill fails to meet the urgency of the moment by deepening our divides and severely eroding historic bipartisan support for Israel’s security. It inserts partisanship into support for Israel, making our ally a pawn in our politics, at a moment we must stand together,” the Office of Management and Budget wrote in its note on the administration’s position. “This bill is bad for Israel, for the Middle East region, and for our own national security.”
House Republicans on Monday released their bill with $14.3 billion in emergency aid for Israel, which follows Hamas’ incursion on October 7 and as the country pursues a ground invasion of Gaza (Defense Daily, Oct. 30).
The bill received immediate pushback for offsetting costs with $14.3 billion in IRS budget cuts, with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre calling the proposal a “nonstarter” in a statement.
OMB in its statement on Tuesday said the inclusion of IRS budget cuts in the bill “sets a new and dangerous precedent by conditioning assistance for Israel.”
“The egregiousness of this particular offset is it adds to the deficit and would help some wealthy individuals and large corporations cheat on their taxes. Congress has consistently worked in a bipartisan manner to provide security assistance to Israel, and this bill threatens to unnecessarily undermine that longstanding approach,” OMB wrote in its note.
A Congressional Budget Office report on the House’s Israel aid bill released on Wednesday estimates the proposed IRS cuts would add $12.5 billion to the national deficit over the next decade.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged lawmakers during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday to support the Biden administration’s full $106 billion supplemental spending request, cautioning against separating out aid for Israel from continued assistance to Ukraine and citing the tens of billions of dollars of investments in the U.S. defense industrial base as a key component for moving forward on the emergency spending package (Defense Daily, Oct. 31).
“I think it’s important to understand that the elements of this request work together as a package. As you know, the defense industrial base operates in a complex way. It’s an interdependent unit. Making these investments together allows us to do what’s needed to strengthen the defense industrial base and to seize the benefits and efficiencies that come from making these investments together rather than making them piecemeal,” Blinken told lawmakers.
The White House has noted that $50 billion of the supplemental spending request would be invested into the defense industrial base, with the total package covering $61.4 billion for Ukraine support, $14.3 billion in assistance for Israel, $7.2 billion in Foreign Military Financing grants, $4 billion to support partners in the Indo-Pacific region, and $3.4 billion to bolster submarine industrial base efforts (Defense Daily, Oct. 20). There would also be funding for border security, including an additional $849 million for systems that can scan vehicles and cargo for illicit goods at land ports of entry.
“[Support for Ukraine] is an urgent requirement—as Ukraine heads into a winter of unrelenting attacks on its civilian infrastructure, they need air defense to protect their cities and munitions to keep pressure on Vladimir Putin. Failing to support Ukraine at this pivotal moment in the war would send a terrible message to Russia about our resolve, let alone to the rest of the world,” OMB wrote in its statement.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Austin said that moving forward on a supplemental spending measure without further Ukraine aid would “guarantee” that Russian President Vladimir Putin “will be successful” in his ongoing invasion.
“And while the Ukrainians have done amazing work with our help, in terms of the things that we’ve provided them, if we pull the rug out from under them now, Putin will only get stronger and he will be successful in doing what he wants to do in acquiring his neighbors’ sovereign territory,” Austin said.