UKRAINE SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2022

UKRAINE SUPPLEMENTAL APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2022

I'm reading about the end of the world and the author mentions that the US Congress has appropriated $13.6 billion to assist Ukraine against the Russian invasion. $13.6 billion is a chunk of money, it's one percent of a trillion dollars, and you know that old saw, a billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you're talking about real money. So I checked and I found this which kind of sounds like it might be true.

I'm reading through it and like all government bureaucratese, it contains a bunch of facts, but they are all piled together higgledy-piggledy. It's a little tough to make sense of when billion dollar allocations are given the same billing as million dollar allocations, so I put the numbers in a spreadsheet and graphed the result. May you enjoy the picture I have painted.

You might notice that the total of the amounts listed is $16.6 billion, not the $13.6 billion in the title. That's because I included this item:

Increased Authorities – The legislation includes $3 billion in authority to drawdown defense articles and services and increased flexibility to transfer excess defense equipment for Ukraine and other regional allies.

I don't know exactly what that means, but it sure sounds like another $3 billion for Ukraine. 

P.S. I'm always looking for ways to automatically format data the way I want it. Today I figured out that it you change  millions to *10^6,  billions to *10^9 and $ to =, you can change dollar amounts like $13.6 billion to pure numbers.