THE BORE
General => The Superdeep Borehole => Topic started by: MrAngryFace on November 13, 2007, 06:54:37 PM
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21775235/
By the end of the week, the House and Senate planned to vote on a $50 billion measure for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill would require Bush to initiate troop withdrawals immediately with the goal of ending combat by December 2008.
If Bush vetoes the bill, “then the president won’t get his $50 billion,” Reid, D-Nev., told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference.
Bush doesn't actually keep the money! It goes to troops! Im not sure how supporting the troops involves increasing their exposure to death with short term funding cuts with a long term goal of getting them home before all of them die as a result of crappy equipment.
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If you accept that framing, then the only choice is to let the administration do whatever they want with all the money they ask without ever having to account for anything.
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Army sez they're outta money by feb if they dont get more. You could say they are in bush's pocket yadda yadda, but they're the people getting shot at. There's countless stories of people sending supplies to their family members in iraq for bomb detection. Its just sad.
You can support the troops and not support the war. Bush wants war money because the troops need war money. Bush is gonna veto everything anyway, its a shitty way to try and push the issue.
I mean why not say hey, if you start pulling out troops now you'll get yer money, but if you don't you'll get less. Its just dirty politics with little consideration for the people on the front line.
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budgeting is one of the most powerful tools congress has. Its about time they start swinging that hammer.
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Except they'd be passing a funding bill that would cover all the money that's being requested, just like they have for the entire duration of the wars. It's Congress' fault that Bush vetoes it? They should respond by giving in rather than overriding the veto to make sure the troops get funds?
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The reality is troops need money. If our troops are over there and we are cutting their money to survive so they can 'come home' that is the most backwards fucking logic i've ever heard.
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The reality is troops need money.
Which is why they'd be passing a bill that included billions and billions of dollars in funding. Right?
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21775235/
By the end of the week, the House and Senate planned to vote on a $50 billion measure for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The bill would require Bush to initiate troop withdrawals immediately with the goal of ending combat by December 2008.
If Bush vetoes the bill, “then the president won’t get his $50 billion,” Reid, D-Nev., told reporters at a Capitol Hill news conference.
Bush doesn't actually keep the money! It goes to troops! Im not sure how supporting the troops involves increasing their exposure to death with short term funding cuts with a long term goal of getting them home before all of them die as a result of crappy equipment.
I'm sure there's some line item veto dealie he can do...
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Line item veto was struck down by the Supreme Court a couple years after it passed.
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It's a pretty simple we're pulling out whether the president likes it or not move. He can either accept it or be the bad guy.
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OH NOES! If Bush Co. is so concerned about the troops he should push for increases rather than cuts to veterans benefits and also secure money for wages separately. Including the money for the troops with all other funding is the questionable political tactic in the first place.
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I agree with MAF, but at the same time I can't help but feel they've already received billions. The last time this debate came up I was firmly in support of giving the money, but now...I dunno. As Mandark said, the "support the spending" argument can be made until the end of time. It has to stop sometime.
At the end of the day the democrats aren't brave enough to not vote for the spending; they were threatening shit last time. If they did...how would that play out with the American people? I'm sure it would be spun into the "dems don't support the troops" argument and bolster Rudy and Romney. Tough decisions :-\
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Almost nobody in Congress actually wants to pull funding as the mechanism for bringing the troops home. The vast majority of Democrats, and the Republicans who would be willing to cross the line, want to incorporate some sort of deadline or schedule into the funding bill.
The problem is the veto threat, and if Bush knows that by vetoing the bill he can get a new one without any deadlines, there is absolutely no pressure on him to sign it.
I don't think it's likely that this is going to work. Even if the Democratic leadership really cracked the whip, Bush is completely stubborn on Iraq and he has the benefit of unity. It's almost impossible to get a few hundred legislators to be as unified and resolute on an issue as a single president, especially on one that a lot would consider politically dangerous.
But just because it's probably going to fail does not mean they should not even try, and if they're going to make a real attempt, there has to be a somewhat credible threat that this is the only version of the bill that's going to come across his desk.
It's bad that this has to happen in a way where people might feel the troops are being hung out to dry, but it's about the only thing Congress can do. They could try to revoke the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, but that wouldn't stop it. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution was revoked and Nixon kept the troops in Vietnam (he actually encouraged that vote so he could assert the executive's authority).