Here are the 5 most insane ways US Ukraine aid is being misspent
The federal government is physically incapable of doing anything without wasting massive amounts of money. Our massive financial support for Ukraine in its war against Russia’s invasion is no exception.
A new investigation from anti-war news outlet The Grayzone authored by Heather Kaiser, Anya Parampil, and Max Blumenthal reveals some shocking ways in which our taxpayer money is being used in Ukraine. Here are the 5 most egregious examples.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) sent $4.5 billion to Ukraine through the World Bank that’s earmarked toward paying down the Ukrainian government’s debt and funding pensions for its employees. The Social Security Administration also sent $4.48 million to Kiev even as Social Security is projected to hit insolvency in just a few years for Americans.
USAID sent $3 million to the World Health Organization to assist drought affected areas… in Ethiopia. This was partially funded with Ukraine funds.
The feds sent $7.6 million to fund “emergency nutrition response”... in Kenya. This, again, was partially funded with Ukraine money.
The Pentagon gave a $4.25 million contract to a diving company that was labeled a “fraudulent company” by a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Oops!
Since February 2020, USAID has also doled out $20 million in “Miscellaneous Foreign Awardees” reportedly including groups seemingly unrelated to the war such as “a Polish think tank called the Casimir Pulaski Foundation” and “ a Toronto-based Ukrainian TV channel.”
And this is all just the tip of the iceberg. The Grayzone made a valiant effort at an independent audit, but the Department of Treasury wouldn’t even tell them how much total money we’ve actually sent to Ukraine, and they had to go off of the information about spending allocation that’s publicly available.
This is why some actual fiscal conservatives, like Senator Rand Paul, fought unsuccessfully for more transparency and accountability measures to be enshrined as part of Ukraine aid legislation. At the bare minimum, the American people have the right to know how our money is being spent and whether lawmakers are actually doing what they said they would with it.
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