WASHINGTON, DC: Congresswoman Kiggans released the below statement after voting for three security supplemental bills to provide critical military aid to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan as well as support U.S. forces stationed abroad. H.R. 8034, the Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, H.R. 8035, the Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, and H.R. 8036, the Indo-Pacific Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, will now be sent to the Senate for consideration as one singular package of legislation.
“The lack of leadership in the White House has resulted in weak foreign policy that has emboldened our enemies. Every day we fail to get aid to our allies, the world grows more dangerous and threats to our own nation and military increase. Our adversaries are watching while we struggle to support our friends. I refuse to sit by as the world implodes due to Washington’s inaction.
“These bills are not perfect, but we cannot continue to let our allies suffer at the hands of our common enemies. If we don’t get this done, our men and women in uniform will be put at risk – including the servicemembers in my district. Iran and its proxies will not stop with Israel. Putin will not stop with Ukraine. China will not stop with Taiwan. Every military family knows if we allow our adversaries to go unchecked, it will eventually mean U.S. boots on the ground.
“Thankfully, much of the funding in this package will be spent here in our own country, replacing older defense systems from our stockpiles with new weapons and better technology. This will help modernize our military, create jobs, and jumpstart our defense industrial base. There’s at least 13 production lines in 10 states where American workers have been employed to help produce new major weapons systems to replace the older ones we are sending to our allies in their time in need.
“America is the greatest nation in the world. We can and should put Americans’ needs first while also supporting our allies… I firmly believe Congress can prioritize and tackle multiple issues simultaneously. As our Republican majority continues to focus on securing our border and lowering the cost of living for working families, we must restore American strength abroad.
“We are on the brink of a national security nightmare. Peace for our nation and across the world is at stake. We cannot afford to wait any longer – we must pass this critical aid now.”
Congresswoman Kiggans was winged as a Naval Aviator in 1995. She served our nation for a total of 10 years as a helicopter pilot flying H-46 and H-3 helicopters, completing two deployments to the Persian Gulf. As a Member of Congress, she serves on the House Armed Services Committee and has recently traveled on Congressional Delegation trips to Israel and Japan where she met with U.S. servicemembers and foreign defense leaders.
BACKGROUND:
H.R. 8034 The Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024
The legislation provides $26.38 billion to support Israel in its effort to defend itself against Iran and its proxies, and to reimburse U.S. military operations in response to recent attacks:
$4 billion to replenish Iron Dome and David’s Sling missile defense systems.
$1.2 billion for the Iron Beam defense system to counter short-range rockets and mortar threats.
$3.5 billion for the procurement of advanced weapons systems, defense articles, and defense services through the Foreign Military Financing Program.
$1 billion to enhance the production and development of artillery and critical munitions.
$4.4 billion to replenish defense articles and defense services provided to Israel.
$2.4 billion for current U.S. military operations in the region in response to recent attacks.
Provides additional flexibility for transfers of defense articles to Israel from U.S. stockpiles held abroad.
Prohibits funds to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
H.R. 8035 The Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024
The legislation provides $60.84 billion to address the conflict in Ukraine and assist our regional partners as they counter Russia, $23.2 billion of which will be used for replenishment of U.S. weapons, stocks, and facilities:
$23.2 billion to replenish defense articles and defense services provided to Ukraine.
$11.3 billion for current U.S. military operations in the region.
$13.8 billion for the procurement of advanced weapons systems, defense articles, and defense services.
$26 million to continue oversight and accountability of aid and equipment provided to Ukraine.
Bolsters oversight through in-person monitoring requirements.
Requires partners and allies to pay their fair share through cost-matching requirements.
Mandates agreement on repayment for economic support by the government of Ukraine.
Increases the fiscal limits on several Presidential drawdown authorities.
H.R. 8036 The Indo-Pacific Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024
The legislation provides $8.12 billion to continue efforts to counter communist China and ensure a strong deterrence in the region:
$3.3 billion to develop submarine infrastructure, including investments in dry dock construction.
$2 billion in Foreign Military Financing Program for Taiwan and other key allies and security partners in the Indo-Pacific confronting Chinese aggression.
$1.9 billion to replenish defense articles and defense services provided to Taiwan and regional partners.
$542 million to strengthen U.S. military capabilities in the region.
$133 million to enhance the production and development of artillery and critical munitions.
Provides additional flexibility for Foreign Military Financing loans and loan guarantees.
As a combat veteran, this congressperson Kiggans’ grossly ignorant pronunciamentos above here quite frankly make me puke.
She refuses to sit by as the world implodes due to Washington’s inaction?
Uh, where exactly is that happening – this implosion due to Washington’s inaction?
Inaction on exactly what?
Where is the evidence of this implosion, as the congressperson asserts?
I am not ignorant, I am not a moron, I am not a fool, and every day I follow the world news and I do not see any signs of the world imploding.
So is she hallucinating here?
Iran and its proxies will not stop with Israel?
Stop what?
Iran and the Houthis are going to take over the world?
BALDERDASH and POPPYCOCK!
Reminds me 0f the DOMINOS ARE FALLING RUN FOR YOUR LIVES hysteria back in the 60’s when the national government in Washington, D.C. were telling us that the Viet Cong were going to take over the world and America unless we bankrupted the country and killed off some 58,000 young Americans to propitiate the gods to keep Ameri8ca safe, and it worked, because the Viet Cong never did invade America and peace reigned in the land as a result.
Putin will not stop with Ukraine?
She is drinking BIDEN KOOL-AID there.
China will not stop with Taiwan?
China already owns a large chunk of America’s burgeoning federal debt, on which we now pay in interest than we do on national defense, so if China wanted to take over America, they would simply buy it up on the open market because AMERICA IS FOR SALE TO THE HIGHEST BIDDERS!
According to the Congressional Budget Office’s latest baseline, in Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, spending on interest is projected to total $870 billion, while spending on national defense will total $822 billion.
This, people, has never been the case before, going back to at least 1940!
Every military family knows if we allow our adversaries to go unchecked, it will eventually mean U.S. boots on the ground?
And how does the congresswoman, herself a seasoned veteran of two combat tours in the Persian Gulf flying helicopter gunships in some very hairy and harrowing combat encounters against this nation’s many adversaries, ducking and dodging ground fire, and surface-to-air missiles and flak and such as were hurled at her by the enemy, to no avail, as she smoked their asses but good with her own miniguns blazing and rocket pods spewing rockets right and left, intend to “check our enemies?”
America is the greatest nation in the world?
Then how come we are out there begging money from everybody else, including OUR ENEMY China, to keep the lights on in Washington, D.C.?
We are on the brink of a national security nightmare?
Peace for our nation and across the world is at stake?
We cannot afford to wait any longer – we must pass this critical aid now?
She sounds like she is hyperventilating to me, and is on the verge of a nervous breakdown due to excessive paranoia and hysteria.
Try some melatonin gummies, congresswoman, or hit up the pot shop in Cape Charles for a good high-powered doobie guaranteed to relax your nervous system and keep you from having a stroke here!
And if she was a Marine officer instead of a Navy officer, she would know a hell of a lot more about world history than she does now, so she wouldn’t be going around half-cocked screeching like Chicken Little that the sky is falling and we’re all going to die, like back in the 50’s with the BIG RUSSIAN SCARE while making an A-HOLE out of herself on the world stage!
Where in the budget is this money? I guess we will just print more paper money! After all it is just a few billion dollars.
Budget?
What budget?
There is no budget down there!
They simply have the federal reserve make it for them as they spend it with no accountability at all for where it goes, which takes us back to WWI and the massive stealing from the taxpayers that was going on then.
Thye nice thing about wars is that they present so many opportunities to steal from the taxpayers witho0ut getting caught.
If they’re gonna just print money, why are they bothering to collect taxes? 🙂
Because it isn’t free – they have to pay interest and principal on it.
Obviously (to most), I was speaking in jest.
Your so-called “jesting” is really quite dense, Raymond, and borders on the incomprehensible, and here we go again, with you making specious and unsupported claims that “most” understand you, when you haven’t a clue as to whom “most” even are, or if anybody besides yourself had a clue as to what you were getting on about with that inane question about “If they’re gonna just print money, why are they bothering to collect taxes?”
Since you know the answer, tell us, why do they collect taxes since they are printing money anyway?
It’s called a sense of humor.
You should get one, they’re nice.
Okay, Ray – sorry!
My bad!
And I do have one, and there are actually times when I use it for its intended purpose, and here I will agree with you that it is indeed quite nice, and grand, actually.
KIGGANS: Every military family knows if we allow our adversaries to go unchecked, it will eventually mean U.S. boots on the ground.
ME: And every combat veteran knows that if there have been American boots put on the ground, they were put there by a bunch of A-HOLES in Washington, D.C.!
And speaking of A-HOLES in Washington, D.C., where the place is literally crawling with them, putting American boots on the ground in the FASCIST DICTATORSHIP of Ukraine:
Red State
“It’s ‘Vietnam All Over Again’ As Defense Department Prepares to Beef Up Number of US Advisers in Ukraine”
By streiff
April 20, 2024
The Department of Defense is considering upping the number of US military advisers stationed in Ukraine.
Calling US troops in Ukraine “advisers” is the kind of footshot that we’ve grown accustomed to from the Biden Defense and State Departments.
“Every Combat Veteran”…. ?
I knew some CH 46 pilots…..
All, Dialed in, Sharp, Brave, Good people. I could go on………
Sir, you are off base.
I support Jen Kiggans and I am not a Republican
Guess what, Jock, it’s America and you get to support whomever you wish for reasons of your own without having to worry about THOUGHT POLICE barging down your door like would happen to you in Ukraine if you didn’t support the thug dictator Zelenski.
And you are a hot shot, real-deal, tough as nails and ready to rock and roll and get it on at the drop of a hat, which is probably more than can be said for anybody else in here – who do you think puts American boots put on the ground in foreign countries?
Themselves?
They buy their tickets, arrange their transportation and at their own initiative, without anyone telling them to go, off to war they go?
Is that how you got your ass over there to Viet Nam – by giving yourself orders to go?
Or did those orders come from Washington, DC?
And you know CH 46 pilots, Jock?
Good for you!
As for me, I know a lot of Huey pilots from Viet Nam and they too were Dialed in, Sharp, Brave, Good people. I could go on………
So what is your point, dude?
Or don’t you have one?
As for me, I really think I would sleep a whole lot better at night if I saw Jen Kiggans wrapped in the American flag on her way to Air Assault Training so she can go and personally kick the asses of everybody out there she thinks is her enemy, which will make me feel so safe I can’t stand it!
And as to me being “off base,” Jock, up top I made this very statement, which I stand by today, to wit:
And if she (Kiggans) was a Marine officer instead of a Navy officer, she would know a hell of a lot more about world history than she does now, so she wouldn’t be going around half-cocked screeching like Chicken Little that the sky is falling and we’re all going to die, like back in the 50’s with the BIG RUSSIAN SCARE while making an A-HOLE out of herself on the world stage!
You certainly are in a position to judge the veracity of my statement that you are calling off-base – am I wrong about Marine officers having to actually read books and study history?
Is that a wrong impression I have of them?
And hey, Jock – FROZEN CHOSIN!
Remember that – the Marine retrograde maneuver out of a Chinese kill sack way up in North Korea near the Yalu River in Korea in hostile, mountainous terrain with temperatures down to forty below?
Did you ever read the excellent Marine Corps history of the Chosin Reservoir action in Volume III of U.S. Marine Operations In Korea 1950-1953, entitled “The Chosin Reservoir Campaign,” by Lynn Montross and Nicholas A. Canzona?
Now, talk about Dialed in, Sharp, Brave, Good people. I could go on……… that was them!
Incredible organization, Jock, in the most inhospitable conditions imaginable by soft people over here.
Jen Kiggans by contrast is a hysterical Barry Goldwater.
And there are or were a number of FROZEN CHOSIN survivors up here, Jock, don’t know if you ever had the opportunity yourself, and I was lucky as a veteran to have had the opportunity to actually meet them.