The US should allocate 95 billion to housing and education, not the Israel-Ukraine war

There is widespread criticism in the United States of the foreign aid bill recently passed by the US Senate. US academics, politicians and other prominent people have complained that important sectors of the US have been neglected and allocated to arms and wars of various countries. They find it alarming.

On Tuesday, the Senate approved a $95 billion ($9.5 billion) aid bill for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. Of this, 9 billion dollars have been allocated for international humanitarian assistance. Some of it may be given to the besieged Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

But after the bill passed in the Senate, analysts say the arms sector has been given more importance than important sectors like housing, health care and education in the US.

Lindsey Koshgarian, program director of the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, said the issue is troubling. "A budget of $9,500 billion means that the US federal budget has increased significantly," he told Al-Jazeera. And a significant portion of it is earmarked for war. There is wide disagreement about where the allocation is going.

Some observers criticized the aid bill in posts on social media this week. "Got money for the war, but can't feed the poor," they wrote, quoting parts of a rap song by the late rapper Tupac Shakur.

The Senate bill calls for $6 trillion in military and economic aid to Ukraine and $1,410 billion in security assistance to Israel, among other appropriations.

Critics of the bill felt that earmarking money for arms was a 'bad use of good money'.

The bill that passed the Senate will be sent to the House of Representatives, the lower house of Congress controlled by the Republican Party. But House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson has indicated he won't let the House vote on the bill. He also demanded that immigration reform be included in the aid package.

In the 1960s, the Vietnam War escalated during the administration of former US President Lyndon B. Johnson. Administration pulls back from 'war on poverty' program Lyndon B. Beginning with Johnson's administration, the US central government began investing heavily in military programs while investing less in social programs.

Last May, a report by the Project on National Priorities stated that 62 percent of the US federal government's discretionary budget (allocated to non-essential sectors) in fiscal year 2023 was spent on these programs.

Last Tuesday, Democratic member of Congress Cory Bush X (formerly Twitter) said in a post, 'We must invest in the humanitarian aid sector at home and abroad. Congress must ensure that taxpayer dollars are not wasted on endless wars. We need investment in housing, health, education and social programs for local people.