Skip to content
Project 2025
Search

Latest Stories

Follow Us:
Top Stories
Citizens in Name Only: What the Supreme Court Can’t Fix

Citizens in Name Only: What the Supreme Court Can’t Fix

The American Experiment at the Brink Due To Minority Rule

The American Experiment at the Brink Due To Minority Rule

Does the foreign aid package include millions of dollars for pensions in Ukraine?

Man waving U.S. and Ukrainian flags

A man supporting Ukraine funding demonstrates outside the U.S. Capitol before the House passed the foreign aid package on April 20

Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Tom Kertscher
By Tom KertscherMay 10, 2024
Tom Kertscher
Tom Kertscher, Wisconsin Watch is a contributor for The Fulcrum, a nonpartisan publication dedicated to strengthening democracy by fostering informed civic engagement and elevating diverse perspectives.
See More Writings by author

This fact brief was originally published by Wisconsin Watch. Read the original here. Fact briefs are published by newsrooms in the Gigafact network, and republished by The Fulcrum. Visit Gigafact to learn more.

Does the April 2024 U.S. foreign aid package include millions of dollars for pensions in Ukraine?

No.

The $95 billion U.S. aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan prohibits funds from being allocated to pensions in Ukraine.

President Joe Biden signed the package into law April 24, 2024.

Ukraine gets $61 billion for its war with Russia, including $14 billion for buying weapons.

Also included is $8 billion in economic support that “may include budget support,” none of which “may be made available for the reimbursement of pensions.”

Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who represents most of northern Wisconsin, said on Wisconsin talk radio that the law includes “millions” for pensions in Ukraine.

His office, pointing to a U.S. State Department news release, told Wisconsin Watch that Tiffany meant to say that previous U.S. aid packages funded Ukrainian pensions.

A top Ukrainian official warned in December that Ukraine might have to stop making pension payments if foreign assistance wasn’t provided soon.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.

Sources

US Congress Making emergency supplemental appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes.

omny.fm Guest: Congressman Tom Tiffany - The Meg Ellefson Show 042524 - The Meg Ellefson Show

U.S. State Department The United States Funds Economic Survey of Ukraine for Sustainable Recovery

Financial Times Ukraine warns of pension and salary delays without western aid


Latest news

A miniature residence of the President of the United States, the White House, against the backdrop of 100 US dollar bills.
Economy

Trump’s State Capitalism Marks a Radical Break in U.S. Policy

Elks, Rotarians, and Both Party’s Lust for Control
Elections

Elks, Rotarians, and Both Party’s Lust for Control

Protesters interact with Capitol Police inside the U.S. Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.
Rule of Law

Potential Trump Slush Fund Is Another Example of Trump Tyranny

Storytelling Is Foundational to Keeping Our Democracy Intact
Democracy

Storytelling Is Foundational to Keeping Our Democracy Intact

Read More

Keeping Kids Safe Online?: Understanding the Debate Over AI Age Verification
boy in gray shirt using black laptop computer
Photo by Thomas Park on Unsplash

Keeping Kids Safe Online?: Understanding the Debate Over AI Age Verification

This nonpartisan policy brief, written by an ACE fellow, is republished by The Fulcrum as part of our partnership with the Alliance for Civic Engagement and our NextGen initiative — elevating student voices, strengthening civic education, and helping readers better understand democracy and public policy.

Key Takeaways

Keep ReadingShow less
Global leaders sitting around a circular table at the G7 Summit on June 18, 2026.

G7 leaders, G7 outreach partners and global tech CEOs attend a working lunch on innovation and AI at the G7 Summit on June 17, 2026 in Evian-les-Bains, France.

Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images

At G7 Meeting, AI Titans Showed Themselves to Be the World’s New “Power Elite”

Seventy years ago, in 1956, the sociologist C. Wright Mills published a startling exposé of the hidden forces controlling the government in the United States. What Mills labeled “the power elite” occupied leading roles in corporations, the military, and political institutions.

Mills’ book was designed to explore the shadowy world in which the power elite operated and to expose the enormous behind-the-scenes influence of a group whose decisions had great consequences for “the underlying populations of the world.” At the time it appeared, commentators credited Mills with “developing a theory of where the decisive power lies in American society, how it got there, and how it is exercised.”

Keep ReadingShow less
The U.S. Pentagon.

Buried in the 2027 NDAA, Section 224 could fundamentally reshape U.S.-Israel defense ties. Is Congress creating an irreversible military partnership?

Getty Images, Westend61

America Should Stay Single

As we wait to see what comes of ceasefire negotiations between the United States and Iran, the House just released its 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Buried within it lies Section 224, titled the “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” a provision representing what would be a radical departure from how we work with even our strongest allies, turning America’s relationship with a close collaborator into a permanent military-industrial integration. The U.S. has worked with NATO partners on co-production and shared supply chains in the past, but never like this. Many are calling it a merger. We should all be calling it off.

Section 224 could inextricably link the fate of our country’s defense to another’s. The Secretary of Defense would be directed to designate an executive agent to fuse ventures with Israel so significantly that it would touch almost every area of defense tech: AI, autonomous systems, energy, cyber, biotech, and beyond. It also proposes “network” and “data fusion,” which means, as the director of the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute warned, “the U.S. military’s data could soon be the Israeli military’s data.” America First may soon sound more like a sarcastic punchline than a platform.

Keep ReadingShow less
AI Could Save Thousands—So Why Is Healthcare Still Hitting the Brakes?

Discover how generative AI in healthcare could reduce misdiagnoses, improve chronic disease management, and save hundreds of thousands of lives—if policymakers accelerate adoption instead of waiting for risk-free perfection.

Getty Images / Pakorn Supajitsoontorn

AI Could Save Thousands—So Why Is Healthcare Still Hitting the Brakes?

Imagine that the only way Americans traveled was on foot or on horseback. And assume that 100,000 people died each year because they couldn’t reach a hospital in time or firefighters arrived too late.

Suddenly, they learned that thanks to a technological breakthrough, cars and trucks will become widely available within three years.

Keep ReadingShow less
© Copyright 2026