Any member of the US House of Representatives who votes for sending $60 billion in aid to Kiev should be required to enlist in the Ukrainian military, according to an amendment proposed by a prominent Republican lawmaker.
Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has submitted half a dozen amendments to the Ukraine “security supplemental appropriations” bill, part of a $95 billion foreign aid package pending before the lower chamber of Congress.
“If you want to fund the endless foreign wars, you should have to go fight them,” she said in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Wednesday. “That’s why I’m introducing an amendment that would require any Member of Congress who votes for the multibillion $ Ukraine supplemental to enlist in Ukraine’s military.”
Taylor Greene has also proposed to block all funds until Ukraine “closes all bio-laboratories and provides all data on such research to the United States Government,” or until the US Department of State certifies that “Christian churches in Ukraine are able to operate free of government interference.”
The US has admitted funding biological research laboratories in Ukraine but has insisted on their peaceful and legitimate purpose, even though much of the money has come via the Pentagon. Kiev has also persecuted the canonical Ukrainian Orthodox Church, seizing its properties and turning them over to the government-backed Orthodox Church of Ukraine.
Two other amendments by Taylor Greene would redirect all the funding from the Ukraine bill to the disaster-stricken communities of Lahaina, Hawaii and East Palestine, Ohio. Another would reassign all the money to the Department of Justice, so it could begin deporting all immigrants who are in the US illegally.
She also took aim at the $14 billion aid package intended for Israel, proposing that “such sums as necessary shall be used for the development of space laser technology on the southwest border” of the US.
“Israel has some of the best unmanned defense systems in the world,” she said on X. “I’ve previously voted to fund space lasers for Israel’s defense. America needs to take our national security seriously and deserves the same type of defense for our border that Israel has and proudly uses.”
None of the proposals have much of a chance of getting adopted. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has come out in support of Ukraine funding requested by the White House and announced that the vote on it would come as soon as Saturday evening.