President Joe Biden said on Monday that individuals who survived the fires on Maui would receive a pitiful payment of “$700 per family” after receiving blowback for remarking to a journalist that he had “no comment” as the death toll in Hawaii rose.
His tweet said they are laser-focused on delivering support to survivors, including Critical Needs Assistance: a one-time payment of $700 for each family bringing relief at an unimaginably horrible time.
A budget expert at the Heritage Foundation estimates that the cost to each American family of the Ukraine War will be more than the one-time payment of $700.
The director of The Heritage Foundation’s Grover M. Hermann Center for the Federal Budget, Richard Stern, estimated that the $900 per family cost of the $113 billion in aid to Ukraine was approved by Congress.
Stern said, “The official assistance packages alone amount to a shocking $113 billion.” This is approximately 12 times the budget cuts proposed by House leadership in the annual spending bills, and it amounts to roughly $900 per household in the United States.
Over a decade, he estimated that homeowners would pay over $300 in interest on the $113 billion in debt.
On Thursday, President Biden asked Congress for an additional $20 billion to aid Ukraine while the fire in Maui raged on.
“If the conflict in Ukraine becomes a protracted fight,” Heritage Foundation president Kevin Roberts said, “Americans are properly growing hesitant about sending more armament from our depleted arsenal and extra monies from the taxpayers.”
Washington “has failed to address their anxieties, explain our nation’s policy in the conflict, or create basic oversight for our help,” Roberts added. And, as Roberts put it, “Washington has failed to address their anxieties, explain our nation’s approach in the conflict.” If Congress is unwilling to address these fundamental issues, then it has no business authorizing more funding for this war.
