Biden Submits Emergency Budget for Israel and Ukraine... Budget Approval Uncertain (Update)

U.S. President Joe Biden announced on the 19th (local time) that he will send a large-scale emergency budget bill, including support for Israel and Ukraine, to Congress on the 20th.

[Image source=AFP Yonhap News]

In a national address from the White House Oval Office that evening, President Biden stated, "Tomorrow (the 20th), we will request an emergency security budget from Congress that includes support for our key allies, Israel and Ukraine." He emphasized, "It must be clear that Israel has everything it needs to defend itself," and added, "The budget package I will send to Congress will be unprecedented in scale." President Biden said, "We are now at a historic turning point," and "It is vital to U.S. national security that Israel and Ukraine succeed."

The budget bill is expected to include support for Israel, Ukraine, and countries in the Indo-Pacific region, as well as security funding for border protection. The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), citing sources within U.S. political circles, reported that "President Biden is expected to send a large-scale emergency budget bill amounting to $100 billion (approximately 135.84 trillion KRW) to Congress."

However, there are doubts about whether Congress can urgently process this budget bill. While support for Israel receives bipartisan backing, the additional aid package for Ukraine faces opposition from the Republican Party. Republicans have pointed out that the support budget for Israel should be handled separately.

Republican Representative Tom Cole said, "(The package budget) is not a fair approach," adding, "It would be much easier for Congress to unite around support for Israel rather than Ukraine." Since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war in February last year, the U.S. Congress has approved a budget of $113 billion (approximately 152.6 trillion KRW) for security, humanitarian, and economic aid to Ukraine.

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

In particular, the vacant Speaker of the House position has not been filled, making prompt processing difficult. All executive branch budgets must be approved by the House, but until the next Speaker is elected, it is virtually impossible to process the budget bill.

Jim Jordan, the Republican candidate for Speaker and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, proposed a resolution to expand the powers of the interim Speaker after conducting a second vote for the Speaker election. This was an attempt to pass the budget bill and other measures before the Speaker election. However, when hardline Republicans opposed it, he changed his stance before the third vote.

According to the New York Times (NYT) and others, after a closed-door meeting of House Republicans that afternoon, Chairman Jordan said, "I am still running for Speaker," and "I plan to go out and win votes to succeed in this election."

He said, "We decided that this is not where we want to go," indicating that the proposal to expand the interim Speaker's powers did not receive support at the closed-door meeting. He also said he wanted to talk with Republican members who voted against him in the first and second votes ahead of the third vote.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.