The House on Thursday passed a bill to provide Israel with $14.3 billion in military aid, a strong show of support for the Israeli onslaught on Gaza, which has killed over 9,000 people so far.
The Republican-authored bill would cut funds from the Internal Revenue Service to pay for Israel’s aid, drawing opposition from Democrats. The bill passed in a vote of 226-196, with only 12 Democrats voting in favor. Two Republicans voted against the bill: Reps. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA).
Due to the IRS cuts, the White House has threatened to veto the bill, and the Democrat-controlled Senate is working on its own version. Democrats expressed frustration at the GOP bill, saying it will only delay getting more weapons to Israel, which already receives $3.8 billion in military aid from the US each year.
“It still mystifies me that when the world is in crisis, and we need to help Israel respond to Hamas, the GOP thought it was a good idea to tie Israel aid to a hard-right proposal that will raise the deficit and is totally, totally partisan,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).
Schumer said the Senate would not take up the House version of the Israel bill at all and would introduce its own that includes funding for the Ukraine war and humanitarian aid for Gaza. The White House recently requested a massive $105 billion spending package that would roll military aid for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan into one, as well as funding for border security.
New House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), who vowed to prioritize backing Israel when elected, said the GOP version of the bill helps Israel in its bombardment of Gaza “while we also work to ensure responsible spending and reduce the size of the federal government.”
Explaining his opposition to the bill, Rep. Massie said the US couldn’t afford it. “Soaring inflation and high interest rates are due to overspending. We can’t afford more foreign aid. I voted against the billions for Ukraine, and I am voting against $14+ billion of foreign aid for Israel tonight,” he wrote on X.
Chuck Shummer — bill that cuts IRS funds to offset money spent on aid to Israel, will increase the deficit? Thos is an interesting math.
That my kids and grandkids will have to pay off.
For every dollar they are in deficit they have to sell an equivalent treasury. They are already struggling to find buyers for their treasuries hence the rise in interest rates.
What your kids and grandkids will have to deal with is a draft. Where they are forced to fight overseas to enrich the criminal class. Just like Ukraine.
Once this criminal class has destroyed America they will move on to another host country, rinse and repeat.
That math is simple. Cutting IRS enforcement funds will reduce the amount of money taken in by the IRS. A
Money spent on the IRS brings in taxes that would otherwise be evaded, plus fines and interest. That, at least, is the theory behind Schumer’s claim.
I am curious – is the “Money spent on the IRS” less than the brought-in “taxes that would otherwise be evaded, plus fines and interest.” ?
“CBO has completed its analysis of another proposal in the President’s budget, an increase in spending for the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS’s) enforcement activities. CBO estimates that portions of the Administration’s proposal to increase funding for the IRS by $80 billion over the 2022–2031 period would increase revenues by approximately $200 billion over those 10 years.”
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/57444
Ah, very nice – thank you for that. It does seem like it would be a net gain for the Treasury, then.
They shoot! They score! Way to go Israel!!!
Let me think, for just a couple of seconds here…
14.3 BillionBucks!
How many Palestinians can you kill, with that kind of dough???!!!
Israel has lost a lot of tanks and men. This is why Biden has changed his stance and is now talking ceasefire. If this goes further south for Israel it may well be the end for them.
The West is Ok with the mass murder of over 2 million Palestinians……lets see if they are ok with the mass murder of 9 million Israeli’s.
The West has lost the war in Ukraine, Afghanistan etc etc etc…….the end for the United States of Atrocities is going to be brutal and bloody.
Correct thinking.Israel thinks and acts like one Israeli life = 15 to 20 Arabs if oil is not involved.
Not if it doesn’t pass the Senate. Partisan gridlock may come to the rescue yet!
Best congress money can buy.
Better yet would be a bill that cut the IRS and gave Israel nothing.
No, corporations and the super rich are cheating the government, meaning the rest of us, blind on their taxes. Funding for the IRS is a good thing.
What would be better yet is keeping the funding for the IRS and giving Israel nothing. And when I say nothing, I don’t only mean no money. I mean no intelligence either. And no technology transfers. And no political or diplomatic cover either, including no veto on the UNSC.
Israel has its own intelligence service which might be the best in the world.
Israeli intelligence just got caught with its pants down!
In any event, the US has technical intelligence resources far beyond anything the Israelis can muster, even if their human intel is as great as they claim it is.
I heard a rumor that the NSA monitors our smart phones. Could this be true and where is our right to privacy?
More than a rumor…pretty widely reported, starting in the WaPo. Our right to privacy has taken some very severe hits, I’m afraid.
I am afraid that what has taken place eliminating peoples privacy is only a short step towards eliminating peoples privacy led by the corporations and SCOTUS as in 1984.
I don’t agree. Israel intelligence knows when two flies are fucking in Gaza. They allowed this to happen. They needed a much bigger number than the pithy number of casualties they suffered in previous skirmishes with Hamas. 1400 got them a get of jail for free card to do what they are presently doing.
I can’t claim any special secret knowledge of Israeli intelligence, but my impression — admittedly old and mostly from Ostrovsky’s By Way of Deception — is that Israeli intelligence is a gaggle of fuck-ups who can’t find their own asses with both hands.
I’ll stick to what I said. If I exaggerated Israeli’s intelligence prowess, so be it. But given their technology, I can’t imagine them not picking up on anything after being warned 3 days prior to Hamas’ attack without it being intentional.
Especially given that warning, they must have known SOMETHING was coming. The question is whether they had any idea that thing was going to be. Depending on how specific the warning was and how much they trusted the warning itself and/or their own sources, they may have just expected one of the periodic and largely ineffectual rocket barrages.
Qui bono?-Biden,Netanyahu,Hamas, Judaophobes everywhere, and Iran. Who lost?,Israelis and Palestinians,US taxpayers and service people.
One of the US reps, I think McCaul? stated unequivocally that Israel was warned. So if the US knew, Israel knew.
I really don’t think they are that clever.
I don’t think they had to be all that clever. I’m sure they’re capable of listening to damn near anything just like our spooks. If it weren’t for the 3 day warning from Egypt prior to the Hamas attack, I might think differently.
Fat, lazy, self satisfied, self valorizing, hegemonic military and intelligence services tend to underrate their opponents and overrate themselves. IDF with Hamas and Hezbullah. The USA with AQ, the Taliban, the Iraqi resistance, the Viet Minh, and so on.
True. But I think 9/11 and 10/7 were cases of them willfully ignoring something that would enable future plans of rampage that wouldn’t have been tolerated otherwise. Not saying I’m right, mind you.
And there is always the question of infiltration, which in the US is fairly common in promoting terrorism in entrapment cases. Were any of Hamas leaders or schemers in cahoots with Netanyahu? Remember when he said he funded them because he could control them?
Sorry but the history:
October 28, 1993
Law-enforcement officials were told that terrorists were building a bomb that was eventually used to blow up the World Trade Center, and they planned to thwart the plotters by secretly substituting harmless powder for the explosives, an informer said after the blast.
The informer was to have helped the plotters build the bomb and supply the fake powder, but the plan was called off by an F.B.I. supervisor who had other ideas about how the informer, Emad Salem, should be used, the informer said.
The account, which is given in the transcript of hundreds of hours of tape recordings that Mr. Salem secretly made of his talks with law-enforcement agents, portrays the authorities as being in a far better position than previously known to foil the February 26th bombing of New York City’s tallest towers.
NYT
Obviously not.
“corporations and the super rich are cheating the government, meaning the rest of us, blind on their taxes”
Avoiding theft isn’t “cheating” the thief. And the fact that the thief may then decide to rob more from other people doesn’t make the thief’s thefts the fault of the people who avoided the thief.
That IRS funding is a DC jobs program. The efforts will be targeted at small and medium businesses not people that get wealthy due to state influence. As far as getting corporations paying more? Even if they do pay more, the corporations will just pass on the costs to the public.
Increases in DC employment for state actors are jobs programs that do nothing to increase the production of goods and services. Increases in projection and efficiency of such is the only way to improve the overall prosperity of the population. Else there is a zero sum game or worse. A decline in general prosperity with a conflict over the scraps are clear signs of a decline of a civilization.
It’s sad that the most basic economic realities are not understood.
IRS agents enforce the law-they cannot change tax preference law. Everyone should file an honest return.
I’d agree but I think rich folks legally avoid taxes. Getting rid of loopholes would be a better fix.
They legally avoid AND illegally evade them.
Get rid of the loopholes AND enforce the law.
I agree. But maybe we wouldn’t need as many if there weren’t sooo many loopholes.
One reason for US aid to Israel is to ensure their survival and avoid use of the Sampson option.
Yes. It’s extortion alright.
One of the reasons why they decided to redirect Ukrainian money to Zionists: Zionists are much more efficient in killing the civilians. As it was announced, Zionists killed in the last three weeks more civilians than the combined number of civilians killed in all other wars in the last tree years.
The government of Israel is just as toxic as the US government.
And what is the civilian death toll in the Ukraine-less than 9000?
It is more than that but we are talking only about the last three years. Most of civilian casualties in Ukraine happened before that. 2014 and 2015 were the most bloody years for the civilians in East and South. 2022 and 2023 are very bloody years in Ukraine but the overwhelming majority of the killed are Ukrainian militaries.
And the 17 or 18 year old who could not escape and got conscripted-is he not also a victim?
I wish Massie would come out and say, “I voted against this bill because it is immoral.”
I’ll still take it for whatever his reasoning might be, but I do agree with you.
“Democrats expressed frustration at the GOP bill, saying it will only delay getting more weapons to Israel, which already receives $3.8 billion in military aid from the US each year.”
Partisan gridlock may just save the day yet!
There will be no gridlock when it comes to Israel.
Nah, they will find a way. Israel are the chosen people but for what?
Chosen for persecution.
They were no more persecuted in Europe than any other religious sect or other religious opponents to the dominating religion. For example, in Tsarist Russia, the most persecuted religious group was Old Believers. Bloody conflicts between Protestants and Catholics are also well recorded.
Did you ever hear of the word pogrom? Of kidnapping 6 year old boys off the streets for 30 years military service in order to convert them? Stalin’s doctors trials and plan to send Jews to Siberia? Facts are facts.
Suddenly there are no budget constraints or problems, the deficit disappeared, and there’s so much money to give it away.
Funny that.
Another aspect of this “redirection” is that it is a great excuse to cut Ukraine off at the knees.
Ukraine is done.
Textbook poison pill.
What goodwill would the US gain in the world in financing a genocide?
oh dear, it is only a genocide when the other guys do it.
Indeed, we’re busy protecting freedom and democracy.
It is a humanitarian genocide.
You win the internet.
What freedom and Democracy. I have not seen anything like those lately. Students and minorities are still getting gunned down by lunatics and Police. We still have to pay taxes while corporations dom not.We still breathe foul air and dirty water. Our politicians are hopelessly corrupt and incompetent.if this is life In hate to see what comes next.
That was snark, wendell.
None and they don’t care.
Chucky Doll can get that bill passed in the Senate, but instead will delay that gift to Israel.
I do not consent and never have consented to money for warfare, destruction, exploitation, abuse and murder.
it is not even for protecting this country! And we could be seen as accomplice in this massacre!
It does not matter whether you consent or not-in a Republic,you have to obey the existing law or change it.
I have to obey warfare? You’re deluded. We live under an oligarchy, too, by the way.
ac·com·plice
/əˈkämpləs/
noun
a person who helps another commit a crime.
“an accomplice in the murder” https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/d6f9671da702f7282af0fbd0f5f1ff8ae64143b5c18f06a461f7dda9ee07d7d6.jpg
Therefore, US = Co-Killer…!
This is sounding more and more like a 10/7 inside job in order to milk US taxpayers money for the most apartheid state in the world…!
I won’t go that far. I’d say it was more of a ‘just let it happen’ thing. That 3-day warning from Egypt has conveniently been ignored.
yes, because no one can explain the failure of MOSAD and CIA
the GOP version of the bill “”helps Israel in its bombardment of Gaza “while we also work to ensure responsible spending and reduce the size of the federal government.””
…. the honorable new speaker of house guy republican guy Johnson
right then. if we reduce the money for american old guys and american children and american environmental eco-systems, etc, then we can continue to funnel america’s tax-money towards america’s “actual” interests which include, and i kid you not;
the bomb industry, the phony medicine industry, the financial loan industry and the invisible information highway industry, etc, ….
my apologies to any industries that i might have overlooked
Add to that the information technology and media industries.
More spending money to stuff in political pockets for AIPAC to insure future support from Congress.
Hey, those are our very own call girls and call boys, ready at a moment’s notice to throw money at Israel so they can murder women and children.
I can smell this putrefying stench from 3000 miles away our here in sunny California.
Israel has lost this war, The United States of Atrocities unwavering support for ethnic cleansing and genocide has cost America its veneer of democracy. We now understand just how evil it all is. The Hague awaits, the stench left by the Biden Administration is putrid.
This publication needs to explain its support for war and genocide and explain its fascist censorship in support of horrendous human rights abuses.
“This publication needs to explain its support for war and genocide”
Well, OK, here’s the explanation:
Antiwar.com opposes war and genocide.
Antiwar.com, not being a government, is powerless to engage in “censorship” even if it wanted to. But it does get to decide how its property is used.
Nonsense. History is going to treat you and this publication badly. Fascism in all its glory, censorship in support of War, ethnic cleansing and genocide. Not to mention racist to its core.
But you go right on defending it. “Powerless to engage in censorship even if it wanted to”?
You just censored my opinion, absolute BS. Say one thing do the exact opposite, its called lying.
Well, you’ve got one thing right: There’s certainly some nonsense involved here. Fortunately for you, being an idiot isn’t a violation of the site’s guidelines, so by all means feel free to carry on.
Abusing your reader base isnt going to change a thing. All delivered at the speed of BS. ITS YOUR WORLD BOSS.
Whether you’re what you appear to be (a warmonger who showed up here only when a particular war broke out and only to cheerlead for his preferred warmonger side in that war) or something more sinister (e.g. a fed or other enemy hoping to damage Antiwar.com by lying about it), you don’t really constitute the site’s reader base.
Israel Lost the War on day One…!
You are correct.however,in the old days,pogroms went unanswered.Now there is a price to pay.
The United States of Atrocities is flying drones over the Gaza Strip taking part in the Mass murder. The United States of Atrocities unwavering support for ethnic cleansing and genocide has cost America its veneer of democracy.
The Hague awaits, the stench left by the Biden Administration is putrid.
They are using our taxes to fund the Zionists war crimes. That is outrageous.
There should be arrest warrants out for Biden and Netanyahu, the war criminals and everyone of their cabal of neocons and Zionists.
Evil, sadistic killers they are. Shame for our nations.
I have no words to describe my feelings.
Humanitarian aid for Gaza after we pay for the killings. That baby in the above picture needs Schumer’s help badly. Insult to injury, what despicable people we elect, such scum.
Both Israel and Ukraine have a countdown………….So does the United States of Atrocities. Calling for the heads of Hamas on spikes is barbaric.
I’m sure I’ve said this before Doom but I’d really like to see you write something…
Donna, there are no words to describe the sorrow and the outrage and shame normal people feel.
https://original.antiwar.com/doug-bandow/2023/08/17/how-will-americas-borrow-and-spend-politicians-pay-for-an-imperial-foreign-policy/
Pls help me define terrorists: Let’s start with the obvious:
1. They kill people;
2.
3.
Can’t help you there. Too simple-minded.
Well, I’ll be damned. My Democratic Congressman voted against! The flack-catcher on the phone said he would vote in whatever way was favorable to peace, and it looks like he did in this case.
RIGHT THE BLEEP ON!!!
Correction: House passes $14.3 billion Final-Solution Bill.
WE, THE PEOPLE, WANT OUR MONEY BACK!!!
Work the phones and let your reps. know!!!
Fuck Israel!