Now, maybe Putin would have gone into Ukraine regardless. Maybe not. Biden sure didn’t help stop the invasion in the least, and hasn’t helped since, so
The War Is Reshaping How Europe Spends
Nicolae Ciuca spent a lifetime on the battlefield before being voted in as prime minister of Romania four months ago. Yet even he did not imagine the need to spend millions of dollars for emergency production of iodine pills to help block radiation poisoning in case of a nuclear blast, or to raise military spending 25% in a single year.
“We never thought we’d need to go back to the Cold War and consider potassium iodine again,” Ciuca, a retired general, said through a translator at Victoria Palace, the government’s headquarters in Bucharest. “We never expected this kind of war in the 21st century.”
Across the European Union and Britain, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is reshaping spending priorities and forcing governments to prepare for threats thought to have been long buried — from a flood of European refugees to the possible use of chemical, biological and even nuclear weapons by a Russian leader who may feel backed into a corner.
That whole off the cuff regime change think sure helped, right?
The result is a sudden reshuffling of budgets as military spending, essentials like agriculture and energy, and humanitarian assistance are shoved to the front of the line, with other pressing needs like education and social services likely to be downgraded.
The most significant shift is in military spending. Germany’s turnabout is the most dramatic, with Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s promise to raise spending above 2% of the country’s economic output, a level not reached in more than three decades. The pledge included an immediate injection of 100 billion euros ($113 billion) into the country’s notoriously threadbare armed forces. As Scholz put it in his speech last month, “We need planes that fly, ships that sail and soldiers who are optimally equipped.”
It’s a pretty long NY Times piece, showing the problems going on in Europe. Refugees, high energy prices, food stocks, you name it, spending priorities are all change.
The pledge includes countries that have fallen below NATO’s goal to spend a minimum of 2% of national output as well as countries that have exceeded the threshold. (The 27 members of the EU and the 30 NATO members overlap but are not identical.)
Hey, I remember when all the Democrats and pundits, including Europeans, give someone a lot of guff over demanding European NATO members pay more for their own defense. Who was that again?
Read: Biden’s Bungling Reshapes European Spending Priorities »
Save the Children has refused an energy firm’s £750,000 ($985,331 U.S.) donation to ease the Ukraine crisis because it doesn’t want to endorse fossil fuels.
Racial and ethnic disparities in Covid-19 infections, hospitalizations and deaths are likely to worsen if Congress does not soon approve billions in new pandemic funding.
When Rishi Sunak announced a temporary cut of 5p a litre in fuel duty in last week’s Spring Statement, electric vehicles were probably not at the front of the chancellor’s mind. He was focusing on the vast majority of road users who experience “pain at the pump” from spiralling petrol costs. Yet the accompanying fiscal outlook from the Office for Budget Responsibility, the independent watchdog, noted that more than one in 10 cars sold in the UK last year were electric; by 2027, it forecast the proportion would rise to 59 per cent — double its forecast only six months ago. Consumer appetite for electric vehicles has consistently run ahead of the OBR’s estimates.
President Biden on Monday unveiled ambitious proposals to reduce the nation’s deficit over the next decade with tax hikes targeting the wealthy, while outlining boosts for military and domestic programs as part of a $5.8 trillion plan to fund the government for fiscal 2023.
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