...except in the US Senate! (Too easy not to, right?)But seriously...
They've rejected any spending limits on the Iraq war - isn't unchecked, irresponsible spending supposed to be the realm of the Democrats?
If higher spending equated to "winning" this "war", I'd be totally in support of it. If cutting spending resulted in an end to this "war", I'd be totally in support of that.
Neither of these strategies presents a logical solution to the issues that face us in Iraq, or in the War on Terror, or in the homefront battle of political power-plays.
Have fun congratulating yourselves.
From The New York Times:
May 16, 2007
Senate Rejects Iraq Funding Cutoff
By JEFF ZELENY and CARL HULSE
WASHINGTON, May 16 — Democrats who are highly critical of President Bush’s Iraq war strategy suffered a stinging defeat today when the Senate overwhelmingly rejected a measure to cut off money for the military campaign by March 31, 2008.
The measure, in the form of an amendment to an unrelated water-projects bill, was effectively rejected, 67 to 29, with 19 Democrats voting against it in a procedural vote. Sixty “yes” votes were required for the measure to advance, so it fell short by 31 votes.
Though the vote was largely symbolic, the outcome was nevertheless significant, in that it underscored the divisions among Democrats over how to oppose the Bush administration’s Iraq policy, as well as widespread fear of being seen as undercutting American troops.
Today’s vote was preceded by an emotional debate. “Too many blank checks have been given to this president,” said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic majority leader, who was a sponsor of the cutoff measure along with Senator Russell D. Feingold, Democrat of Wisconsin.
“As we speak, more than 150,000 brave American troops are in the middle of a violent civil war,” Mr. Feingold said. “Meanwhile, the president has repeatedly made it clear that nothing — not the wishes of the American people, not the advice of military and foreign policy experts, not the concerns of the members of both parties — will discourage him from pursuing a war that has no end in sight.”
“Congress cannot wait for the president to change course,” Mr. Feingold said. “We must change the course ourselves.”
One Democrat voting against Mr. Feingold’s measure was Senator Carl Levin of Michigan, the chairman of the Armed Services Committee. He has been critical of the administration’s conduct of the war, but he said he did not want to send the wrong message to American soldiers. “We’re going to support those troops,” he said.
Moderate Republicans who have been critical of Mr. Bush’s war strategy also rejected the Reid-Feingold amendment. “I don’t think it’s responsible,” Senator Susan Collins of Maine said. “It’s a disservice to the brave men and women who are fighting in Iraq.”
No Republicans voted for the amendment. The only non-Democrat who did was Senator Bernard Sanders, an independent from Vermont who usually votes with the Democrats.
Afterward, backers of the amendment said they were not discouraged.
“Nothing is off the table,” Mr. Reid said. “The goal remains to fully fund our troops and change course in Iraq.”
Mr. Feingold said he was heartened by the vote. “Today, a majority of the Democratic senators said it is time to end the mission as we have it and to bring this mistake to an end,” he said. “That is a huge change.”
The symbolic vote was also important in terms of presidential politics. Two candidates for their party’s nomination in 2008, Senators Barack Obama of Illinois and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, said for the first time on Tuesday that they would support legislation to curtail major combat operations in Iraq by March 31, 2008, cutting off financing for all but a limited mission of American forces. Both of them were among the 29 who voted “yes” on the procedural vote today.
“We are doing everything we can to influence the president to change the war in Iraq,” Senator Clinton said shortly after the vote. “It’s very important for us to do all we can to try to express the will of the American people.”
But when asked by a reporter whether she supported the underlying idea of the Feingold bill, to cut off financing for major combat operations next spring, she declined to say yes or no. One day earlier, a spokesman said the senator supported the legislation.
“I’m not going to speculate on what I’ll be voting on in the future,” she said today.
Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton made separate announcements on the eve of today’s Senate debate concerning the use of the Congress’s power of the purse to bring the war to an end. For weeks, the two senators had declined to state their positions, but they issued statements after rivals — and liberal groups — criticized their silence.
Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Democrat of Connecticut who is seeking to draw more attention to his presidential candidacy, began broadcasting advertisements on Tuesday in states with early primary elections, highlighting his support for the legislation. “Unfortunately, my colleagues running for president have not joined me,” he said. Hours later, at least two of them did.
As the Senate prepares for final negotiations with the House over Iraq war spending, presidential politics have, once again, become intertwined with the debate in Congress. Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton, aides said, had resisted signing onto the plan, fearful of being portrayed as cutting off money for the troops, even though supporters say the bill will not prevail.
The defeated Reid-Feingold measure called for a troop withdrawal to begin within 120 days. Senate Democratic leaders agreed to let the Feingold proposal come up for a vote on Wednesday as a prelude to negotiating with Republicans and the White House over an Iraq spending plan.
Mr. Obama said he did not believe that cutting off money for all but a limited mission was the “best answer.” But he concluded he would support it, he said, “to send a strong statement to the Iraqi government, the president and my Republican colleagues that it’s long past time to change course.”
Mrs. Clinton, who has struggled to explain her initial support of the war to some potential voters in Democratic primaries, said she would vote to support the Feingold plan “because we, as a united party, must work together with clarity of purpose and mission to begin bringing our troops home and end this war.”
The dispute over the war spending bill has consumed Congress for weeks and prevented the administration from getting the roughly $95 billion it is seeking for the Pentagon for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The vote today allowed those Democrats most opposed to the Iraq war to vent their frustration before the Senate proceeds to efforts to find a compromise with the White House over war spending.
Mr. Reid and Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, have been negotiating over how to win quick Senate approval of a preliminary war spending measure, so that compromise talks can begin with the House and White House over a final bill. Mr. Reid was adamant on Tuesday that Congress would not break for the Memorial Day recess until it produced a final Iraq spending measure that would be accepted by President Bush.
“We’re going no place until we finish this bill,” Mr. Reid said Tuesday evening on the Senate floor.
But Representative Steny H. Hoyer, Democrat of Maryland and the House majority leader, raised the possibility that meeting next week’s deadline would be difficult. If Congress does not meet the deadline, it will, for the second time, leave for a recess without finishing the Iraq spending measure.
While the Iraq votes on Wednesday may not have a significant impact on the immediate war spending bill, the results will reflect Senate sentiment on conditions in Iraq, which could influence the war debate as it proceeds throughout the summer.
Senate Republicans were offering options of their own. One included a proposal sponsored by Senators John W. Warner of Virginia and Ms. Collins, requiring the president to report to Congress on the progress in Iraq by July 15 and Sept. 15. The Warner-Collins proposal got 52 “yes” votes today, eight short of the 60 needed. Forty-four senators voted against it.
The proposal would have allowed some economic aid to be withheld if the president did not certify that Iraq was meeting benchmarks for success. But at the request of the White House, the proposal was changed to allow the president to waive that penalty.
While the two parties aired their public differences over Iraq on Tuesday, lawmakers and aides said the talks over a final spending plan still centered on providing money for the war tied to conditions on the Iraqi government to show progress in unifying Iraq politically and stabilizing it from a security standpoint.
“I think there’s widespread frustration with the Iraqi government, and, clearly, these benchmarks are going to be directed toward the Iraqi government and its performance, or — at least so far — its lack of performance,” Mr. McConnell said.
David Stout contributed reporting.
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