comment: >
context: What a load of malarkey - You are considerably misinformed.
  The "billions going to Ukraine" is largely being spent in America.
  Half of this money is being spent for American Weapons, made by American Defense Contractors, who employ American Workers.
  Not only this, you ought to consider the immense, intangible yet priceless benefits to supporting Ukraine:
  
  
  Guaranteeing European Security, which not only helps our friends and allies solve the problem of their own defense, but also frees up our assets to focus on China long term. 
  
  
  Utterly humiliating and destroying the Russian Military with zero cost to American Lives.
  
  
  The ability for American Defense Contractors and Foreign Policy Analysts to understand how the 21st century battlefield is changing and to test new tactics and strategies with our own hardware.
  
  
  On an ideological level, the Military Industrial Complex is actually doing what it ought to be, using the massive network of American Military Supremacy to defend Democracy from those who would literally genocide the Ukrainians.
  
  
  We are building a goodwill and friendship with the Ukrainian People that will pay dividends for decades, if not centuries, to come.
  
  
  While this is all occurring at a horrific cost to Ukraine and her People, the War is the biggest gift American Foreign Policy could ever ask for. Only somebody mindlessly digesting foreign propaganda like some KGB-Human Centipede would think supporting Ukraine is harmful to us.
  And even if ALL of these facts were false -
  We should still support Ukraine because it is the Righteous thing to do.
  There is nothing more honorable than helping a People throw off the shackles of Tyranny and Oppression at the hands of Russian Invaders who rape and murder and kidnap and destroy in a slew of horrific warcrimes that can only be described as Evil. >
  
  
  While this is all occurring at a horrific cost to Ukraine and her People, the War is the biggest gift American Foreign Policy could ever ask for. 
  
  Lol and you're just saying the quiet part out loud. You people are willing to kill as many ukranians as necessary just to hurt a rival. Americans are the most evil people on earth. >
  
  Comrade, idk if you've had too much vodka, but the Russians are the ones killing Ukrainians - not Americans.
  We are helping Ukraine tell Russia to go fuck themselves. >
  
  You guys would rather send weapons than sit down for peace talks. You guys caused the conflict, then sabotage any chances for peace. >
  
  
  You guys caused the conflict
  
  By "You guys" he is obviously referring to the Russians who attacked and invaded Ukraine. >
  
  All I'm hearing is, we can't do anything outside our country until we fix every single problem inside our own country (which is impossible).  Sometimes the return on investment is higher when we spend money outside the country, than doing something like giving tax breaks to our rich people.  It's such a lazy and intellectually vacant argument, meant to appeal to people who have already made up their minds, and aren't looking to apply any critical scrutiny, but bolster their position with empty rhetoric.  Republicans (the only people you'll find making this argument), happily spent 1.5 trillion on tax cuts that supported the rich, 7 trillion dollars on pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that made us less safe, and the vast majority of the PPP funds passed under Trump had almost zero enforcement mechanism, and were essentially a handout to businesses regardless of their actual needs.  And now 100 billion, which is a drop in the bucket, is a bridge too far.  They've said enough, and they need to stop talking now.  They've made their positions clear, they're treacherous. >
  
  What I’m saying is, I support sending money to Ukraine, but it’s such a stupid excuse to say that the money could’ve gone to our own country, when they had every chance to use that money to help beforehand, I don’t see the logic behind that >
  
  
  7 trillion dollars on pointless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that made us less safe
  
  Yeah, supporting democratically elected and nato backed governments against genocidal terrorist organizations is pointless lol >
  
  To be clear, it is not $$$$ being sent but equipment.  Think tanks, air defense systems, missiles, etc.  That equipment is manufactured in US. >
  
  Ah okay so public wealth is being transferred from public coffers into the hands of private war profiteers, nice >
  
  
  why wasn’t it ever going towards our country in the first place
  
  Because Republicans in Congress (and a large portion of Democrats) have no interesting doing anything that would actually help ordinary Americans.
  If all that money had instead been proposed for expanded child tax credit, day care assistance, etc. it would not have made it through Congress. >
  
  That’s my point, they complain that it should’ve gone to the people but even if they could, it would’ve just found it’s way into their own pockets, >
  
  The reason they say it is because it's a reasonable sounding bad-faith argument to make predicated on a false-dichotomy.  They don't want to help anyone, they just want to hurt their enemies. >
  
  If it doesn't go to Ukraine, it'll go to the wealthy in the form of tax breaks or some other corporate welfare.  The GoP isn't about to let that money go to the good of the common American.
  Look how hard the GoP are fighting even modest college debt relief - which has roughly same pricetag as our aid to Ukraine.
  They don't want any government money going to anything that does not increase their wealth or reduce their taxes.
  If you want money to go to the common citizen, you'll need to give the Dems a filibuster proof trifecta. >
  
  
  If you want money to go to the common citizen, you'll need to give the Dems a filibuster proof trifecta.
  
  They didn't do anything with it under Obama why would they now. Democrats and Republicans serve the same corporations >
  
  Just so you know, I am self employed now, and was back when Obama was president too.  Key point, I have bought my own health insurance for a few decades now.
  Obama used up literally all his political capital getting Obamacare passed. (edit: meaning all his political capital when he had both houses)
  When he did, it cut my health insurance from around $750 per month (in 2010-ish dollars) to around $500.  And the plan was SO MUCH better than the $750 one, because of the minimum coverage requirements, not to mention the pre-existing conditions thing - but that did not really affect me.
  No other govt program has benefitted me so directly, in my pocket, where I could feel it.
  So if you are looking to shit on the Obama admin for not giving anything back to the average citizen, it won't fly very far with me. >
  
  I maintain Obama only got 10% of the political capital he had a right to, purely because of republican racism.
  After his election is when we saw the Right turn their back on Americans, and began, in earnest, to directly harm the American People. 
  ...It's like Republicans decided in a watershed moment that if he is America, then we choose Treason. >
  
  There are I suppose arguments you could use to criticise current US support for Ukraine but this argument that 'we are spending money on Ukraine when we should be spending it on the poor here' is deeply suspicious.
  1) the money is being spent on jobs in USA. And of course, it's USA, so the shareholders are getting profits too.
  2) there are wonderful social media propagandists, promulgating an emotional reaction from their followers in the far right and far left against supporting the defence of Ukraine. Russian infiltration of social media to undermine USA is evident, it undermines democracy by polarising opinion and shaking trust in democratic institutions.
  On the far left, the argument is that the CIA installed Zelensky to have a puppet leader so the US could increase NATO and get rid of Russia. So, it's a version of US imperialism. How do I know this? My Californian friend of the far left told me.
  For myself, I am grateful the US and all the other countries too are supporting Ukraine. I shudder to think what would have happened next if they hadn't. And I am concerned that Putin's replacement could be worse. >
  
  Stopping Russian at Ukraine save sus money in the long run. If they're allowed to push up next to more of our actual allies, those costs to us go up substantially.
  And the people who keep using thai excuse to fix stuff here first...also keep preventing us from fixing the things here. It's just a smokescreen >
  
  That’s exactly my point,if they really wanted to fix anything here,they would’ve done so a long time ago >
  
  It isn't "a few billion", it's over $100 billion.
  The issue that many people have comes down to the fact that we didn't actually have that money, and are financing it with debt.  That raises the question as to why we are borrowing money to give to a country we have no alliance with when we also have record inflation at home.
  Also consider the recently passed spending bill.  It gives a ton of money to various countries to help secure their borders, but nothing is being to address the issues we have on our southern border.
  It's certainly an issue that gave Trump a lot of support with his America First philosophy >
  
  We spend trillions on the military every year. I feel like we're doing more overall good for the world with the billions being sent to Ukraine than we are with most of our regular military budget.
  And that's before you consider that a large fraction of that expenditure isn't actually a real cost to the US.
  Consider: You have an old couch. You're going to throw it out sometime and replace it with a new couch. Then you realize you have a friend who needs a couch. You decide to replace your couch a little earlier. You buy a new couch and your friend picks up the old one. For accounting purposes, you put down that you donated a couch worth $200 to your friend. If you hadn't done that, you wouldn't actually be $200 richer. The couch would have probably ended up in the dump.
  That's the equivalent of what's happening with a lot of the weapons systems going to Ukraine. Not all of it. But some of it would have just gone in the trash otherwise. >
  
  Correct.
  For the first time in my entire life, the Military Industrial Complex is actually doing what it's supposed to do - instead of blowing holes in the desert and making a bunch of brown kids orphans. >
  
  Can't help but remember the film Team America: World Police. Sure seems the EU and Germany in particular should be financing this particular war on behalf of the world. Aren't they the moral superiority these days? >
  
  We are Gemany’s weapons manufacturers and defense- what could they send?   
  It is literally a jobs program for the US defense industry, plus a huge benefit to us in actual Russian military capabilities intelligence. That doesn’t even include the benefits of depleting Russian military and propaganda assets which also aid our allies. >
  
  
  We are Germany’s weapons manufacturers and defense- what could they send? 
  
  Money. In exchange for weapons they can donate to Ukraine. >
  
  That they buy from us, which they are doing.   
  Don’t underestimate how huge our economy is in comparison to others, or the actual benefits to our economy by all our ‘foreign aid’ which is largely US weapons and agriculture products. >
  
  Most of it is not cash, it's military equipment the DOD has already bought. If you want to argue the military budget should be cut we can have that debate >
  
  We may have the best military in the world, but the world is rapidly changing,and even then the military budget is only a percent of all the country’s money, there’s no reason to cut it