If you are paying any attention to politics you know about the 218-212 vote on the “Timetable for Troops in Withdraw Iraq.” This is a spending bill that not only sets a deadline for the troops to leave Iraq it has a great deal of other government “pork barrel” spending in it.
Lots of discussion has, is being, and will be had about this issue. This is as politically political as politics can get. The President has vowed to veto the bill.
I am not being all doom and gloom or angry about this bill at all, even though there is a great deal of substance to be angry about. I am excited about this bill because it highlights the function of our government.
If I recall correctly this is the second bill Bush will veto, the first being the stem cell bill. As it stands, as far as congress goes and if congress is an accurate representation of America, the American people want to set a deadline for our troops to come home. Of course I disagree with this, I am in the minority, but this why we have checks and balances. This is why the executive branch exists. The President’s veto can be overridden but only with I think a 3/4s majority in congress, something the democrats will never come close to having. I doubt the bill even gets out of the Senate.
I am aware I have said many times that the people should get what the people want. However, after reading a great deal about gun control laws (situations where the majority of people want something unconstitutional, seriously, if a majority of Amarilloans or Texans wanted slavery could they supercede the 13th amendment? No) and situations like this where a simple majority sets the tone for everyone checks and balances such as this are an outstanding idea.
Snarky jokes and partisan politics aside issues like this do more than what they are intended. They teach us how government functions and gets more people involved in politics, I think.
Otto von Bismarck once said that the less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better.
H.R. 1591, entitled “Making Emergency Supplemental Appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2007, and for other purposes“[emphasis added] is a classic example of how votes can be bought with pork barrel amendments. Subsidies for the spinach, peanut and milk lobbies (among others) show that the Democrats are every bit as unprincipled as the Republicans in their appetite for pork. What this has to do with emergencies is beyond me.
Indiana Congressman Mike Pence, a true conservative who I think would make an excellent choice for VP on the ‘08 Republican ticket, summed it up better than anyone when he said:
“Spinach, shrimp, peanuts and shellfish? That’s not a war funding bill, that’s the salad bar at Denny’s.”
The Democrats know that they can’t get away with cutting funding for the war altogether, so they’ve come up with this scheme of buying votes for a bill with a built-in deadline for retreat that will have to be vetoed by the President. In the meantime, our troops may be left high and dry while they work this all out. So much for supporting the troops.
Democrats like Nancy Boyda, Health Schuler, Nick Lampson, Tim Mahoney, and Harry Mitchell ran and won on a platform of fiscal responsibility and putting an end to earmarks. I haven’t read the roll call on this bill yet, but I would be very interested to see how they voted.
When this comes to the Senate for a vote, there’s a variable I’ve only heard Bill Bennett speculate about. Independent-Democrat Joe Lieberman is one of the staunchest supporters of the war on Islamofascism in general and the war in Iraq in particular. Could a similar bill sponsored by the Democratic Senate leadership prove to be the tipping point for Lieberman to cut all ties with the Democrats? Might he even jump to the Republicans, thereby changing the balance of power in the Senate? Probably not, but will the Democrats risk losing their majority in the Senate for a bill that will only be vetoed anyway?
Stay tuned. This is politics at its Machiavellian best (or worst, depending on your point of view).
Democrats like Nancy Boyda, Health Schuler, Nick Lampson, Tim Mahoney, and Harry Mitchell ran and won on a platform of fiscal responsibility and putting an end to earmarks. I haven’t read the roll call on this bill yet, but I would be very interested to see how they voted.
For the record, every one of the 5 Democrat representatives listed above voted for the emergency spending bill with the pork tacked on, as well as with built-in mechanisms of Congressional micro-management of the war. So did two Republicans: Walter Jones (NC) and Wayne Gilchrist (MD).
On the other side, 14 Democrats voted against the bill in its present form. Here’s a link to the breakdown (Democrats are in italics).
I have a great deal of faith in the system of checks and balances; I only wish I had as much faith as Bo does. But having lived through Congress abandoning the South Vietnamese not once but twice (once by cutting funding to our troops, then by cutting funding to South Vietnam about a year after we pulled out), I’ve learned that when a President has been weakened as much as Nixon was, Congress (especially a Democrat-controlled Congress) smells blood in the water and acts accordingly.
There are other factors that make the de-funding of the Vietnam War different (more than 12 years of fighting, over 50,000 dead, an army made up of draftees, a President on the threshold of impeachment, etc.). There was also less at stake for us accepting defeat in Vietnam. For those reasons, the system of checks and balances may yet lead us to do the right thing in Iraq, which is a very different war (contrary to the opinion of some).
Let’s all pray for wisdom and courage among our elected officials in dealing with this. The future security of our country may hang in the balance.