Some Final Thoughts on Opposition to Aiding Ukraine and the Federal Budget

So, as the House gears up for a budget fight and government shutdown, this seems like a good time to raise the issue of budget wars in general an opposition to aid to Ukraine in particular.  The House Freedom Caucus has put out a statement of extremely vague demands, most of which have nothing in particular to do with the budget.  The Freedom Caucus wants:

1. Tougher border measures;
2. An end to "weaponization" of the Justice Department;
3. An end to "woke" military policies;
4. No "blank check" in military aid to Ukrain
5. Funding in separate bills, rather than one omnibus bill..

Look, at the risk of pointing out the obvious, none of these are, in any meaningful way, budget cuts.  Tougher border measures means spending more, not less.  Defunding investigations of Donald Trump and whatever the Freedom Caucus deems "woke" in the military are sums so miniscule that they scarcely even count as cuts.  Ending aid to Ukraine (which the statement hints at but does not actually call for) would be a cut spending, but not a significant one.  And separate bills might give more opportunities for cuts, but so far the Freedom Caucus does not appear to have offered specifics that would make any difference.  COVID funding is also a favorite, but so far the best Republicans can offer in terms of real cuts is general, across the board spending cuts, with the exception of a few favored programs.

In other words, the government shutdown is not, in fact, about the budget.  Government shutdown is a convenient hostage for the Freedom Caucus to use in order to demand and end to a few select programs that it has ideological objections to, in the guise of budgetary concerns.

And just to be clear, there is nothing wrong or hypocritical with having ideological objections to any particular government program.  I strongly disagree with the Freedom Caucus in their ideological objections, but I do not see a problem with ideological objections per se.  What is hypocritical is to phrase objections to a very narrow and specific sub-section of government spending in terms of budget cutting.  The fact is that cutting out everything anyone sees ad ideologically objectionable is not going to make even a dent in the total deficit.  Any serious attempt to reduce spending is going to mean cutting programs that people like.  

I can only assume that the Republican Party has had a libertarian branch opposed to all government spending in blanket terms for so long that many Republicans only know how to express their opposition to a government program in terms of blanket opposition to spending, rather than expressing their particular ideological concerns to a particular item.

All of which lead to the question of military aid to Ukraine.  Again, I get that Republicans tend to express their opposition in terms of a blanket opposition to spending, but once again, we are not going to make even minimal impact on the budget deficit by ending military aid to Ukraine.  That is a sign that the real objection is ideological and not budgetary.

So what is the ideological objection?  I will assume that some really do fear WWIII and some really do want Russia to win.  But my guess is that this is not the primary issue for most, and certainly not for the base, which also broadly opposes such aid.

My guess is that the primary reason so many Republicans oppose aid to Ukraine is a longstanding opposition to any foreign aid of any kind whatever.  Any underlying that appears to be a belief that spending US taxpayer money on people who are not US taxpayer is a kind of theft.  Keep in mind here that spending money in ways that harm non-citizens, i.e., wars, such as absurd proposals to invade Mexico, is not seen as theft, on the assumption that any harm to non-citizens is done in order to advance the interests of US citizens.  But the thought that anything could benefit both non-citizens and US citizens (or at least interests) is unthinkable.

And, I will add, that this outlook closely matches Trump's general approach to foreign policy, which assumes that the US should not have allies because having allies means taking actions for the benefit of other countries, and not solely for the US. And that it is this outlook, rather than a general opposition to war in general, that underlies the long-term rightwing tradition of isolationism.