Republican Rep. Rich McCormick (R-GA) has introduced a new bill that seeks to use frozen Russian assets to reimburse American taxpayers for the billions of dollars in aid being sent to Ukraine.
McCormick introduced the legislation, called the “Make Putin Pay” Act, on Wednesday, according to a copy of the bill exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller.
Roughly $330 billion in assets of Russian officials and related oligarchs have been seized and frozen by the U.S. and NATO allies.
The seizures are part of a larger effort to impose sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, the bill states.
McCormick’s proposal would allow the U.S. federal government to use these frozen assets to reimburse American taxpayers for the ongoing aid to Ukraine.
It would also be used to support future aid without using U.S. tax dollars.
“[This bill] does a few things,” McCormick told the Daily Caller.
“It takes the Russian threat very seriously, it’s punitive [and] it means we’re all in on doing the right thing.
“And at the same time, it doesn’t increase our debt… this takes the assets that were frozen and uses it against the Russian war efforts.”
“This uses their own funds to basically purchase munitions and weaponry to stop [Russian] aggression directly,” McCormick said.
The bill notes that America’s share of the frozen assets would first be used to pay back the debt incurred from foreign aid to Ukraine.
This debp currently totals roughly $100 billion.
Any remaining funds would then be used to support future aid to Ukraine, rather than use taxpayer funds to do so.
The notion of using tax dollars to fund the endless war has increasingly lost support from members of Congress.
According to the bill, Democrat President Joe Biden has the authority to use the frozen Russian assets to reimburse the U.S. or fund Ukraine’s war effort.
However, McCormick argues that Biden hasn’t taken decisive action to do so because he is scared of being too aggressive with Russia.
“A lot of people are intimidated by ‘big, bad Russia,’” McCormick added.
“I mean, this president has been around politics for 50 years.
“I think he’s somewhat intimidated by the idea of Russia and doesn’t want to agitate them.”
McCormick noted that Biden’s handling of the Russia-Ukraine war has been poor from the start of the conflict in February 2022.
The congressman attributes Biden’s poor show as a world leader to his faltering “mental faculties.”
“Joe Biden doesn’t do a good job of anything because he just doesn’t have the mental faculties to make a good case,” McCormick said.
“He’s not able to make a good case – certainly not an authentic, genuine, real case for why we should be supporting Ukraine, but that doesn’t take the onus off of us to do the right thing.
“In fact, it just makes me have to step up and do his job for him,” McCormick said.
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