INVESTMENT IN DEMOCRACY

Penny wise and pound foolish MAGAt Republicans are wringing their hands over the money we are spending to aid in the defense of Ukraine against Vlad the Invader's, criminal, immoral, genocidal attack.

Let's take a moment to put this into perspective.

Q: How much has the USA spent so far?

A: One year into the defense of Ukraine against the Russian invasion, the USA has spent approximately $115 billion.

Q: What percentage is this expenditure of our overall US defense budget?

A: The Unitef States Department of Defense budget for fiscal year 2023 is $1.98 trillion.

$115 billion = 5.8% of $1.98 trillion.

In other words, what we have spent in one year is less than 6% of our annual defense budget.

It is also less than one half of one percent of the US gross domestic product (in 2022 the US GDP was $25.5 trillion).

Q: What are we getting for our money?

A: To date, almost 2000 Russian tanks have been destroyed or captured. As many as 270,000 Russian solldiers have been killed, injured, or have gone missing. A similar number of military-age Russian men have fled their country rather than be conscripted into the Russian military.

In other words, for less than 6% of our annual defense budget we have helped to wreck Russia's military.

More importantly, we have halted the expansion of a brutal authoritarian regime in Europe.

This is a blow to make authoritarian criminals everywhere think twice before attempting to obliterate a democratic county's identity and seize its territory.

What we have achieved so far would be a bargain at twice, or thrice, or quadruple the price!

IMHO