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Political Hay
The War Over War Funding
The fight to pass Obama’s spending bill for Iraq, Afghanistan, and the IMF wasn’t as easy as it looked.
Yesterday President Barack Obama’s $106 billion war supplemental sailed through the Senate by a 91 to 5 vote, as was expected. But in the House, the spending bill faced a much more difficult path to passage that was anything but expected.
Dozens of liberal Democrats who had campaigned against the Iraq war voted to fund it, at the request of an antiwar president. In the end, only about 30 of the hardest-core antiwar liberals in the Democratic caucus defied Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer on the supplemental vote.
It gets stranger. All but five Republicans in the House voted against the bill funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, joining Dennis Kucinich and Barbara Lee. For the first time since the Clinton years, Ron Paul stood with a majority of his fellow Republicans when he voted against a war supplemental.
The Politico’s Mike Allen accused the GOP of doing an “about-face” on funding the troops. He quoted a senior Democratic leadership aide: “This is absolutely stunning and totally irresponsible on the part of John Boehner and House Republicans. George Bush and the Republican Party led us into this war and now Boehner and Co. vote to leave the troops high and dry for political reasons. This is a real game-changer on national security, one House Republicans will be hearing about for a long time.”
So have Republicans gone wobbly while the Democrats have become the strong-on-defense party? When it comes to Democratic war spending, there is usually more to the story. Remember the emergency spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan that shoveled money toward peanut farmers and spinach growers? This time international bureaucrats get a cut.
At issue was $5 billion tucked away in the bill to secure a $108 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan. Republicans blasted it as a “global bailout” and pointed out that the $108 billion IMF package is actually larger than the nearly $80 billion going to the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Unfortunately, Democratic leaders decided the bailouts here in America weren’t enough,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner in a statement. “They’ve insisted on including a $108 billion global bailout in a bill that is supposed to fund the troops.” House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence, a leading conservative, also criticized the “global bailout” that was “passed on the backs of our troops.”
Conservative writers and bloggers also pounced. Wrote Connie Hair of Human Events: “American taxpayers, should this supplemental pass the Senate, would have to borrow money from foreign countries like China to loan to the IMF for this boondoggle.”
Meanwhile, liberal bloggers — many of whom don’t like bailouts any better than the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — began salivating at the prospect of the supplemental’s defeat. “House Republicans, including Minority Leader John Boehner, have threatened to vote no on the war funding if the IMF money is attached,” wrote Robert Naiman on Huffington Post. “If Boehner could bring all the Republicans with him, and if all the Democrats who voted no last month voted no again, the war supplemental would fail on the floor of the House, 200-228.”
But House Democratic leaders came up with the votes, allowing the supplemental to pass by a final vote of 226 to 202. When the ban on releasing terror detainee photos was reinstated in the Senate, upper chamber opposition collapsed and the bill passed easily. It is now on its way to President Obama’s desk.
House Republicans will be criticized for departing from the Bush-era rhetoric concerning war funding votes (especially considering the “emergency” process the last administration preferred when it came to paying for the wars). Democrats will come under increasing fire from the netroots for saying one thing when it comes to war and then doing another.
Nevertheless, the House war funding imbroglio might still have lasting ramifications. If antiwar Democrats realize a war is still a war even when a member of their party is in the White House, and Republicans realize that extraneous spending is still extraneous spending even when the stated purpose is national defense, Obama could face a left-right coalition large enough to start handing him legislative defeats.
Politics makes for strange bedfellows.
About the Author
W. James Antle, III, author of the new book Devouring Freedom: Can Big Government Ever Be Stopped?, is editor of the Daily Caller News Foundation and a senior editor of The American Spectator. You can follow him on Twitter @jimantle.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (34) | Leave a comment
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Pingback| 6.19.09 @ 6:50AM
The War Over War Funding – Spectator.org Adding Info links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Bob| 6.19.09 @ 7:38AM
Antle, I am going to ruin your reputation by telling you that you are totally right on this. However, I fear that little will change as we are talking about POLITICIANS on both sides, and not principled citizens. They are taking positions that will improve their chances of being reelected - nothing more.
If they were really principled, they wouldn't put extraneous elements in omnibus legislation. But the chances of that happening are about as small as TAS becoming liberal.
Big J| 6.19.09 @ 8:07AM
It is beyond disgusting that the Democrats would use our military in such a manner.
They should be ashamed of themselves, but they have no shame.
Bob| 6.19.09 @ 8:17AM
BigJ -- the Republicans did EXACTLY the same thing when they were in power. This is NOT a Democrat or Republican thing! It is a function of being a politician. So open your eyes...
JerseyJ| 6.19.09 @ 8:24AM
Bob's correct on that matter. Both sides of the aisle are guilty of loading down necessary legislation with pork, christmas trees and entitlements. We need a "One Subject at a Time" law desperately so this wouldn't be a problem.
Tim| 6.19.09 @ 11:59AM
Captain Renault: And what in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?
Rick: My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Captain Renault: Waters? What waters? We're in the desert!
Rick: [sardonically] I was misinformed.
Central Coast| 6.19.09 @ 2:06PM
Not to sound like another broken record, didn't Obama promise "us" that "there will be absolutely no more earmarks as I will go over all bills, line by line, and eliminate these earmarks that waste the taxpayers money."
And so much for our elected officials protecting our hard earned money instead of informing "us" of the added pork. Watch, some moron liberal will probably blame our soldiers for overspending in defending our country. And cheer our Senators for their bravery. WTF???
101st
Hill 937
JerseyJ| 6.19.09 @ 4:05PM
Central Coast correctly observed ... "didn't Obama promise "us" that "there will be absolutely no more earmarks as I will go over all bills, line by line, and eliminate these earmarks that waste the taxpayers money.""
Indeed, except technically he stated they would be reduced to pre-1994 levels which would mean a reduction of 75%. Burned me up to see him hold up the porkulus bill and tell us it contained "no earmarks". Didn't porkulus 2, aka the last omnibus spending bill contain some 9,000 earmarks?
While we're at it, our teleprompter in chief also promised ...
- no more lobbyists in the cabinet
- post legislation online for 5 days to allow public comment BEFORE signing it
- Be open and transparent
- Fight for independent oversight of congressional ethics violations
- put federal spending information online
- he didn't want to run a car company
- he would save or create jobs
- enforce pay - go budget rules
- we all could keep our private health insurance if we want to.
- we can spend our way out of debt
- to end no bid contracts above $25k
- to go line-by-line to ensure we're not spending money unwisely
- to ensure that any tax breaks for corporate recipients — or tax earmarks — are also publicly available on the Internet
- to reduce the number of middle managers in the federal government
- to centralize ethics and lobbyist information for voters
- to require more disclosure and a waiting period for earmarks
- to post the name of the member of congress who requested each earmark
- secure our borders
The lies simply go on and on and on and on and ... well you get the idea.
Virginia Beach Business Direct | 6.20.09 @ 8:36AM
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Big J| 6.20.09 @ 2:01PM
Bob, your "the Republicans did it too" argument is getting old. Try a new line.
I screamed at the top of my voice each and every time they did it.
The fact is, using a military funding bill to cram a global bailout scheme down our throats is unconscionable. Period. I don't care if there is a "D" or an "R" behind your name. I say the Senators that passed this caved, and there were a bunch of "R"'s in there.
As for me, I prefer to walk around with my eyes shut, I have an easier time avoiding collision with obstacles that way.
What happened to you that made you so bitter?
Just curious.
Anthony Powell| 6.20.09 @ 6:21PM
Apparently Ron Paul is the only legislator in DC who understands the Constitution. He opposes these UNCONSTITUTIONAL wars because they are unnecessary and, well........unconstitutional. And he also understands that war is a racket. Warisaracket.com
Military deaths| 6.23.09 @ 6:03PM
Military deaths
June 14, 2009
The Defense Department last week identified the following American military personnel killed in Afghanistan:
Rocco M. Barnes, 50, of Los Angeles; major, Army National Guard. Barnes was killed June 4 in a vehicle rollover in Afghanistan. He was a member of the California Army National Guard's Tactical Command Post, 40th Infantry Division and assigned as an individual augmentee to the 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force at Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.
Ricky L. Richardson Jr., 33, of Franklin, Mo.; chief warrant officer 2, Marine Corps. Richardson was killed Wednesday while reportedly trying to dismantle a bomb in western Afghanistan's Farah province, on the Iranian border. He was assigned to the 9th Engineer Support Battalion, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force in Okinawa, Japan.
Eduardo S. Silva, 25, of Greenfield, Calif.; specialist, Army. Silva died of noncombat-related injuries Tuesday at Afghanistan's Bagram Air Field, north of Kabul. He was assigned to the 563rd Aviation Support Battalion, 159th Combat Aviation Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) at Ft. Campbell, Ky.
Joshua R. Whittle, 20, of Downey; lance corporal, Marine Corps. Whittle was killed in combat June 6 in southwestern Afghanistan's Helmand province, on the Pakistani border. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marine Regiment, 3rd Marine Division, 3rd Marine Expeditionary Force at Kaneohe Bay, Hawaii.
Sources: Department of Defense and Associated Press
Pingback| 8.10.09 @ 8:07AM
Money Bombs Away | America Watches Obama links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Lelani J | 6.5.11 @ 9:21AM
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