President Joe Biden is asking Congress to approve $24 billion more in aid for Ukraine, which would bring the total amount of U.S. taxpayer-funded aid to Ukraine since February 2022 to $135 billion.
In contrast, Biden announced Wednesday that he would send $95 million from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to aid in rebuilding Maui after the nation’s deadliest fire in over a century, which has claimed more than 115 lives, with hundreds still unaccounted for.
The $95 million is less than one-tenth of one percent of the $135 billion that Biden is seeking to spend on aid to Ukraine in a war that has no end in sight.
The announcement came after Biden offered Maui households affected by the fire a one-time payment of $700 each — less than the $900 each household spends on the Ukraine war, according to a calculation by a budget expert at the Heritage Foundation.
A Maui resident who is leading grassroots relief efforts on the ground told Breitbart News that the $700 amount was “laughable.”
“That’s laughable,” said Dale Hermo-Fernandez in a phone interview from Maui. “I mean, that’s laughable. The government should have engaged the unemployment for these people the first week [and] give them $700 hours a week on top of that, to help them,” he said.
“Just like how they did during the COVID…That would help them get on their feet. There should be an emergency subsidy in the unemployment just to help people stay on their feet because they have nowhere to go to,” he said.
According to preliminary figures from the University of Hawaii’s Pacific Disaster Center and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, it will cost more than $5.52 billion to rebuild Lahaina, which was destroyed in the fires.
At least 2,207 structures in Lahaina were damaged or destroyed in the fires — 86 percent being homes, and nine percent of that commercial.
Thousands of Lahaina residents are currently homeless and living in temporary housing. Earlier this week, a Hungarian company sent 60 fold-up homes to Maui, the first batch of 250 it hopes to send by October.