The Economics Of Military Action

Here's something you don't see everyday - a member of Congress asking to fiscally quantify endless war:

“There are some fundamental questions that I would ask of those who are suggesting that we follow a long term counterinsurgency strategy:

1. As an Appropriator I must ask, what will that policy cost and how will we pay for it? We are now in the middle of a fundamental debate over reforming our healthcare system. The President has indicated that it must cost less than $900 billion over ten years and be fully paid for. The Congressional Budget Office has had four committees twisting themselves into knots in order to fit healthcare reform into that limit. CBO is earnestly measuring the cost of each competing healthcare plan. Shouldn’t it be asked to do the same thing with respect to Afghanistan? If we add 40,000 troops and recognize the need for a sustained 10 year or longer commitment, as the architects of this plan tell us we do, the military costs alone would be over $800 billion. And unlike the demands that are being made of the healthcare alternatives that they be deficit neutral, we’ve heard no such demand with respect to Afghanistan. I would ask how much will this entire effort cost, when you add in civilian costs and costs in Pakistan? And how would that impact the budget?

Warmongers have had the great luxury in this country of never having to justify their costs. Not just the human costs, but the real financial costs to constant military buildup. The usual retort is that you can't put a price on human lives. If that was the case, there would be no requirement for budget neutrality in health care reform, something that could save as many as 45,000 lives annually - the people who die from a lack of health insurance.

Rep. Obey's full remarks are well worth reading - he makes all the points about the futility of nation-building in a country without a partner in the government, the danger of angering local populations with a heavier occupying footprint, the fantasyland strategy of bringing democracy to Afghanistan, the need for an achievable policy, the potential for the war to crowd out any other Presidential agenda item. But I wanted to highlight this part because it's so alien to the contemporary political debate. It's certainly nothing you'd ever hear coming from the mouths of one of the fiscal scolds. The Pentagon budget, the budget for perpetual war, is inviolable and somehow magic - it doesn't create deficits, it doesn't produce burdens on long-term spending, it is never "at risk of going bankrupt." David Obey at least is trying to change that misimpression.

Some insider leaked the idea that the top-level troop request is actually 60,000, in an effort to make the 40,000 number seem like the middle course. Maybe they can write down on paper how much that would cost. And do it in a ten-year budget window to make sure the costs are inflated as possible.


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Last Chance For Accountability In Iraq

Democrats are priming for the kill tomorrow.

After a flurry of last-minute number changes, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D-Wis.) unveiled a three-step process Tuesday for the House consideration of an emergency $183.7 billion wartime spending bill, possibly as early as this week.

In a press conference, Obey said the House will hold three votes related to different components: the first on military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the second on conditions to be imposed on the defense funds, and the third on a set of domestic initiatives, not all of which are reflected in the chairman's price-tag.

Chief among these are an extension of unemployment insurance benefits, expected to cost between $11 billion to $12 billion over 10 years, and a landmark expansion of education benefits for veterans who have served since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Extending unemployment insurance is the most effective economic stimulus you can offer, and we need a new GI Bill for the 21st century. So the third bill is fine. But this decoupling essentially writes a blank check for military operations in Iraq, extending even into the next Presidency.

This is unacceptable and it's no secret why this is being done basically in the dark. Despite Michael O'Hanlon's pleadings, the military is broken. There are no troops left to deploy, and continuing to grind the same ones into the dirt just breaks their souls - with veteran suicides on the rise. If this destruction of the volunteer military was in service of some kind of noble goal, defending the nation from enemies or some such, that would be one thing. But they're serving in an occupation that has no military solution, one where reducing violence to then-unacceptable 2005 levels makes you a hero, one where we rationalize national resentment and resistance to occupation as part of the Iraqi honor code , and one where continued involvement and even widening of the war is based on half-truths and useful fictions.

The notion of "special groups"--JAM factions that supposedly have close ties to Iran's Quds force--is, in many respects, a useful fiction. Now there is no doubt in Dr. iRack's mind that there are some JAM elements that deserve the title, but the U.S. military has made a habit of describing all JAMsters who violate the "freeze" on armed activities declared by Moqtada al-Sadr last August as "special groups." In many respects, this is useful to provide slack in the system and prevent the Sadr ceasefire from completely shattering under strain. Yet it also creates a false impression that the majority of JAMsters fighting U.S. forces take their orders directly from the mullahs in Iran (much as the use of the label "Al Qaeda in Iraq" as a catch all term for a disparate and very loosely aligned collection of Sunni insurgent groups creates the false impression that most Sunni insurgents take their orders from Bin Laden or the foreign leadership of AQI).

More than ever, as fighting has escalated in Sadr City, the fiction of special groups has seemed especially fictional. It's been clear throughout the recent conflict that rank-and-file JAM have entered the fray. Now, to be clear, some of these regular JAMsters also receive Iranian weapons, but they are not trained, directed, or controlled by Iran. They are simply opposed to the U.S. presence in Iraq and are willing to take weapons from anybody who will help them fight Americans.

The war is a strain on our resources and does not make us safer. The Democrats want to deep-six any accountability until the elections. I believe that would be a fatal mistake. Things can always get worse in Iraq, and allowing the situation to muddle through for the next eight months decreases any hope for even the least worst option to succeed. This is a betrayal.

Gimme Some Money (George Bush remix)

Steny Hoyer can't even seem to get capitulation right. He has no idea who he's dealing with.

The White House on Saturday threatened to veto a massive spending bill being assembled by congressional Democrats, saying it's unacceptable to add billions of dollars to domestic programs.

The White House has not seen details of the $500 billion-plus measure — which senior Democrats are constructing behind closed doors — but reacted to it based on media accounts.

The bill contains $11 billion above President Bush's February budget, awarding the money to domestic programs such as education and health research. It also may contain several billion dollars in "emergency" funding for border security, foreign aid, drought relief and a food program for women and children.

Somehow Bush isn't troubled by the nearly $1 trillion dollars poured into Iraq and Afghanistan, it's those damn women and children getting food that honks him off.

The Democrats give Bush practically everything he wants and all he does is ask for more.

The only good news here is that David Obey appears to have had enough.

Efforts to pass a massive compromise federal spending bill stalled Monday as a top House Democrat threatened to abandon the measure, accusing the White House and congressional Republicans of failing to bargain in good faith.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, D-Wis., had been working with moderate Republicans to try to generate momentum for a catchall spending bill that split the differences between increases sought by Democrats and the strict budget submitted by President Bush in February.

But after a White House veto threat over the weekend, a frustrated Obey said he would rip up the compromise bill and devise a new one using the strict spending ceiling set by Bush — but would reach it by whacking GOP priorities and stripping the measure of billions of dollars in pet projects for lawmakers in both parties [...]

"Short of having somebody in authority sit down and say, 'OK, we will work out a reasonable compromise,' I don't see any point in prolonging the agony," Obey said. "I don't see how we have any choice but to go to the president's numbers on appropriations to make clear that we aren't going to link the war with token funding on the domestic side."

He's JUST now figuring out that Republicans negotiate in bad faith? Oh well. Better late than never. As long as the Iraq debacle isn't tied to omnibus spending, I'm OK with it. And I've got a few ideas on where he can start with cutting spending. First, eliminate abstinence-only education. Then cut out the Vice President's office, he's not in the executive branch so he doesn't need it. Finally, get rid of every penny of Steny Hoyer's copious earmarks. Serves him right.

"Respect My Authoritah!!!!"

President Irrelevant tries to become revelant again.

President Bush today vetoed a bill that would have provided $150.7 billion for education, health care, job training and other domestic programs.

Dana Perino, the White House press secretary, said the measure exceeded the president’s budget request by nearly $10 billion and included some 2,000 items designating money for lawmakers’ pet projects.

“He will ask Congress to take out the pork and reduce the overall spending level and return it to him quickly,” Ms. Perino said as the president flew here from Washington, for speeches to business and community leaders.

Which is perfectly consistent with his principled call for the Republican-led Congress to remove wasteful spending projects from their I can't even finish this sentence.

The defense appropriations bill, by the way, got passed, even though it's FAR more bloated ($459 billion dollars), because we can't have defense contractors going hungry this holiday season. That bill included a stopgap measure for most federal agencies, so we aren't facing a government shutdown until mid-December. Mind you that the last Congress passed ZERO of their spending bills last year, remember that when you hear talk of the "do-nothing Congress."

Representative David R. Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, denounced Mr. Bush for rejecting the health and education bill, which embodies the values and priorities of the Democrats who now control Congress.

“The only reason the president vetoed this bill is pure politics,” Mr. Obey said.

“The same president who is asking us to spend another $200 billion on the misguided war in Iraq and is insisting on providing $60 billion in tax cuts next year to folks who make over a million bucks a year” is “now refusing to provide a $6 billion increase to crucial domestic investments in education, health care, medical research and worker protections that will make the country stronger,” Mr. Obey said.

It's something that this Congress had better get used to - the President doesn't give a crap about anyone making less money than he does.

Braindead Leadership

I have really tried to give the Democratic leadership in Congress more credit that most liberal bloggers, but they walked right past a real game-changer on Iraq, and at this point you must question their commitment to end the war. David Obey offered a perfectly reasonable suggestion of a war tax, so that those who want to cheerlead for this war can actually feel the effects of it. No American President has ever cut taxes during wartime, and our burgeoning debt (the limit was just raised again last week) is the nine trillion dollar elephant in the room. A war tax would simply change the conversation in Washington, and put more pressure on those who want an endless occupation of Iraq to explain to their constituents why they have to keep paying through the nose for it. Distributing the costs of war is one way to end it. In addition, Obey raised the possibility of blocking funding in the Appropriations Committee if his ideas aren't in the new supplemental bill.

So within hours, the Democratic leadership was throwing cold water all over the idea, which has been proposed by none other than Joe Lieberman in the past, and got mad at Obey for freelancing.

The Hill reports that some House leaders are cool to the war tax idea, adding some in the leadership were angry with Obey's timing. They said Obey screwed up by pushing forward an idea where there's disagreement on a day when Dems were looking to score a big political hit on Bush over his veto of SHIP, the kids' health care proposal [...]

I'm told, however, that there's a bit more to these tensions than meet the eye. House insiders say they think that this anonymous dumping on Obey came from the office of House Dem leader Steny Hoyer.

Hoyer is a big proponent of the new House Iraq bill being sponsored by Dem Rep. Neil Abercrombie that was voted on yesterday and passed overwhelmingly. Because this measure lacks a binding withdrawal timetable, others in leadership -- like Pelosi -- are cool to the idea, insiders point out. Hoyer cared more about Abercrombie than the other leaders did, leading his office to get irked by Obey's distraction.

"The dumping on Obey likely came from Hoyer, who was much more enthusiastic about the moderate -- read: toothless -- Ambercrombie legislation than the rest of leadership is," a House insider tells me.

In other words, the fault lines here are at bottom over Iraq -- Hoyer likes Abercrombie more than the rest of leadership, and is also less inclined than the rest of leadership to pursue a funding fight of the sort favored by Obey. "Hoyer genuinely thought Abercrombie was a good thing and Obey distracted from it, plus Hoyer is scared of funding fight," the House insider said.

Really, is there anyone more useless than Steny Hoyer? He was so interested in a toothless, useless bill - the Abercrombie bill requires the President to write a report on a withdrawal plan, literally like 5th-grade homework instead of a change in policy - that he angrily denounced a member of his own party that is finally understanding that the only way to change policy in Iraq is by blocking something instead of passing something. Hoyer doesn't want to end the war and doesn't want to fight the establishment. He's a mealy-mouthed, cautious denizen of Status Quo-ville who believes the hype that anbything about national security is a positive for Republicans. That's not only wrong, but the resultant inaction is killing the party.

The Hoyer-Murtha battle for Majority Leader may have been the final nail in the antiwar coffin. Instead of a leader in that position we have a follower, a useless hunk of flesh without any long-term understanding of the party's goals. Obey was finally coming around to the right idea and he gets slapped. Unbelievable.

I don't even totally agree with the war tax idea (not under this President, I don't want to funnel him more money he can use on imperial adventures), but clearly it would have changed the conversation. Instead we're stuck at square one.

Will David Obey de-fund the war?

David Obey, the chair of the House Appropriations Committee and therefore arguably the most important figure in terms of supplemental funding, just held a very interesting press conference, in which the key quote was this:

“As Chairman of the Appropriations Committee I have absolutely no intention of reporting out of Committee anytime in this session of Congress any such request that simply serves to continue the status quo."

The truth of this is a little more complicated. But the baseline of what Obey's saying is, at least for now, he won't let a blank check out of committee. If the White House will not submit any alternative, that's de-funding the war.

Let's look at the full context of Obey's remarks:

“I would be more than willing to report out a supplemental meeting the President’s request if that request were made in support of a change in policy that would do three things.

-- "Establish as a goal the end of U.S. involvement in combat operations by January of 2009."

-- "Ensure that troops would have adequate time at home between deployments as outlined in the Murtha and Webb amendments."

-- "Demonstrate a determination to engage in an intensive, broad scale diplomatic offensive involving other countries in the region."

“But this policy does not do that. It simply borrows almost $200 billion to give to the Departments of State, Defense, Energy, and Justice with no change in sight.

"Establish as a goal" is pretty weak tea, as we all know. It's of a piece with the Abecrombie-Tanner amendment being debated today, which does nothing but ask for a report on withdrawal rather than its implementation. And the Webb Amendment, while vital, is more of a slow-bleed than anything that will lead to a rapid drawdown.

But here's the thing. The White House won't accept this, and they believe this is a fight they can win. Of course they do, they've won it in the past. They just won it in the Senate:

Thwarted in efforts to bring troops home from Iraq, Senate Democrats on Monday helped pass a defense policy bill authorizing another $150 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The vote was 92-3.

The Senate bill doesn't guarantee that the money be spent; only a separate appropriations bill will manage that. And so what we're looking at is an impasse in the House Appropriations Committee. Will Obey shut it down, or will he just roll over? Well, maybe he can be flooded with the results of that new poll showing that Americans want to see the funding cut.

Most Americans oppose fully funding President George W. Bush's $190 billion request to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while a majority supports expanding a children's health care program he has threatened to veto, a Washington Post-ABC News poll shows.

The poll published on Tuesday also shows deep dissatisfaction with the president and with Congress, partly because of the stalemate between Democrats and the White House over Iraq policy, The Washington Post reported.

Only about 25 percent of Americans support the administration's $190 billion war funding request; 70 percent want the proposed allocation reduced, the Post said.

We aren't likely to see the allocation reduced, but surely the Democrats can manage to remove their heads from their posteriors enough to understand that the public wants bold action and doesn't mind a combative stance. Obey's statement is the first step toward that. If he's willing to use his power of the gavel to force actual policy changes, that's a real change.

There's also this bit of controversy:

“If the President really is concerned about stopping red ink, we are prepared to introduce legislation which will provide for a war surtax for that portion of military costs that are related to our military actions in Iraq.

“We are choosing not to offset costs associated with our efforts in Afghanistan, because we believe that those are legitimate, because our Afghanistan effort is aimed at eliminating the Taliban who gave shelter to al Qaeda, and that action will benefit future generations. But those future generations should not be saddled with paying for an ill advised war in Iraq that seems to be never ending.

“If this war is important enough to fight, then it ought to be important enough to pay for.

“We know that this proposal is going to be controversial – I don’t expect to get the support of our leadership or the support of our caucus at this point – but by putting together this bill we hope people will stop ignoring what this war is costing American taxpayers and call the President’s bluff on fiscal responsibility.

I highlighted the part where Obey doesn't expect the support of the leadership on the war tax. The truth is that he doesn't need it. He holds the gavel on Appropriations, and nothing will pass without his say so.

I'm not convinced that Obey has the wherewithal to really cut the funding. But he's certainly moving in that direction.

Greatest Hits of the Iraq Floor Debate

David Obey takes apart The Washington Post:



Jack Murtha on what hurts the troops (bullets, grenades):



Patrick Murphy gives the closing speech:



(Editorial comment: I don't totally agree with Obey on this, enticing people with farm subsidies for votes is in my view an odious practice. But he's dead right on Fred Hiatt and the war-lovers at WaPo. Glenn Greenwald has more.