I don't think the war in Ukraine is taking money away from domestic programs. Republicans are the ones who take money away from domestic programs. The defense budget overall is gross, but to conflate that with Ukraine is not helpful.

I work regularly with Ukrainians for a company that works in a specialized kind of software development.

These are people who lived ordinary lives, like you and I. When I talked to them on Zoom, I saw their very Western housing interiors lifestyle.

Then, in February, many of them were on the run. One woman I worked with had to flee to Poland with her kid while her husband fought Russian animals.

She's back in Lviv now, but now they're enduring crippling missile strikes on their electrical grid.

They keep working anyway. The lights are out for much of the day, but when they get small doses of electricity, they fire up their computers and sling some code. It's pretty amazing.

I've worked out an arrangement with the company I work for as a freelancer. I invoice them, but the Ukrainians get paid first. Since the war started, I typically have to wait about 60 days after I invoice the company before I get paid.

I am glad to do this.

The Ukrainians I talk to have no interest in a peace settlement with Russia if it means Russians occupying part of their nation, because they know that, like Crimea, they'll just gear up for another attack in a year or two or three.

They rightly want to end this the correct way, by smashing Russia's decrepit war machine to pieces.

So what do taxpayers get out of this? They get a ruined Putin. This can only be good for the world in the long run.

If Americans want to distribute the pie more evenly, which they should, there is one sure way to do it: Go back to the tax tables of the 1950s-1970s, without the loopholes.

The enemy is the right wing. Not Ukrainians or their immense, other worldly courage in the face of the kind of adversity most of us cannot imagine.