Senate Democrats Shield Financial Transparency: 87,000 IRS Agents Hired to Investigate our Finances, Yet Block Oversight Committee to Monitor U.S. Taxpayers’ Money to Ukraine

Rules for thee but not for me!

Senate Democrats rallied on Wednesday night to oppose the establishment of a new office intended to audit taxpayers’ money sent to Ukraine as military aid.

This proposal was included as a provision in the annual defense spending bill, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), for the fiscal year 2024.

While everyday Americans are struggling with Biden’s inflation, Democrats continue to harass Americans with thousands of new IRS agents while sending billions in taxpayer dollars to Ukraine, and they won’t even support basic oversight.

The opposition to the creation of the Office of the Lead Inspector General for Ukraine Assistance saw forty-five Democrats, including every member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, voting against the amendment, according to New York Post.

Independent Senators Angus King (Maine) and Bernie Sanders (Vermont), as well as Republican Senator Rand Paul (Kentucky), also sided with the Democrats.

This move saw several key Democrats, including Jacky Rosen (Nevada), Joe Manchin (West Virginia), Sherrod Brown (Ohio), and Bob Casey (Pennsylvania), preventing the amendment from reaching the necessary 60-vote threshold.

If passed, the provision, drafted by Senators Roger Wicker (R-Mississippi) and Jim Risch (R-Idaho), would have allocated $10 million of the NDAA’s massive $886 billion budget to establish a 30-person inspector general’s office. Also, this new bill will expose rampant corruption.

Wicker expressed his disappointment at the lack of Democratic support.

“Lawmakers are far better positioned to support Ukraine when taxpayers feel confident that their money is spent on a transparent and effective basis. I will continue promoting rigorous oversight of Ukrainian military aid,” said Wicker.

The amendment was co-sponsored by Senator Josh Hawley (R-Missouri). Hawley previously called the substantial aid an “affront to the American taxpayers.” Sinema, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) also sponsored the provision for aid.

Kennedy and Sinema advocated for a single inspector general, rather than what they termed a “patchwork of watchdogs” spread across the Pentagon, State Department, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that top oversight officials at the Pentagon, State Department, and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had expressed the need to deploy auditors to Ukraine to monitor the distribution of aid.

During the nearly year-long war in Ukraine, inspectors general from these departments have conducted oversight remotely. The officials claimed they had not reported any major fraud involving the more than $113 billion sent to Ukraine in 2022.

However, the Pentagon revealed last month that an overestimation in the value of weapons sent to Ukraine over the past two years has resulted in an extra $6.2 billion of U.S. taxpayers’ money earmarked for the Eastern European country. This figure is approximately double what was originally estimated and allegedly will be utilized for future security packages.

Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh provided clarification on the nature of the error, explaining that the military services had used the replacement cost rather than the book value of equipment pulled from Pentagon stocks and sent to Ukraine.

According to Singh, the error was identified during a detailed review of the accounting process.

The party that hired 87,000 IRS agents to investigate your finances doesn’t want you investigating their finances

Go figure https://t.co/97UQMx2pp4

— DC_Draino (@DC_Draino) July 27, 2023

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