Earlier this week, Secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, visited Ukraine and vowed that the United States will provide “funding to repair basic infrastructure,” so that it could form the “foundations of the Ukrainian economy so that it can continue to operate under extraordinary circumstances.”

This has been my concern from the beginning: as the Biden Administration has spent tens of billions of tax dollars to support the Ukrainians, they are already plotting to spend even more of your money to repair the destruction caused by Russia.

While I agree that rebuilding infrastructure is essential for Ukrainians, I don’t believe Americans should be paying for the brutal decisions made by Vladimir Putin.  With President Biden’s failed economic policies increasing inflation and prices for every family, the last thing they need is to pay for Russia’s actions.

That is why I co-sponsored the Make Russia Pay Act, which would allow the Treasury Department to liquidate and transfer seized Russian assets in order to fund repairs to Ukrainian infrastructure.  According to data released in 2022, Russia’s own central bank had about $100 billion of reserves held in U.S. dollars.  By authorizing the Treasury to disburse funds directly to Ukraine to rebuild destroyed infrastructure and assist other European nations, we are forcing Russia to pay for the damages it has caused on millions of lives globally.

You reap what you sow.  Putin must, too.  There is no need to take money from our wallets to fund repairs in Ukraine - we can simply get the aggressor to pay for the war that he started.