Not One Dollar, Not One Dime

We're now up to 87 Congresscritters that will not vote for any funding for the Iraq occupation other than for a fully funded redeployment, including deep South members like Artur Davis (D-AL) and Bennie Thompson (D-MS). That's only 25% of the House, but out in the country, the numbers for de-funding are much higher.

Asked what Congress should do with President Bush's pending Iraq supplemental request, the poll found that 70 percent of respondents want Congress to either vote against the President's request or require that funds can only be used for my plan to protect troops and bring them home. And by a two to one margin, respondents favored requiring that funds be spent on redeployment instead of providing the administration funds without conditions.

The polling memo is at Rep. Barbara Lee's One Voice PAC site.

We know that no supplemental will be coming out of the House until next year, so this is an opportunity for the Out Of Iraq caucus to get from 87 to 218 and force the hand of the leadership. The purse strings are really the only way to truly end this war, and it's going to be a long road which will not end with the election of the next President, as we know. So electing more and better Democrats to the House, and growing this movement over the next weeks and months, is crucial.

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.

Caught

Rahm Emanuel gets stuck on Bill Maher. If you want to know why Democrats can't stand this Democratic Congress, watch this 10-minute object lesson.



Here we have a senior member of the Democratic leadership claiming that we can't cut off funding for the war because Bush will leave troops naked and unarmed in Iraq anyway. And being OKAY with that, accepting that as some kind of reality instead of a gross violation of the Constitution and the stuff coups are made of.

Emanuel has to twist himself into these rhetorical kots because he thinks the war is a far better issue for Democrats in 2008 than something they should stop in 2007. It's the classic sports strategy of copying success: saying we'll end the war worked in 2006, why not use it again? The answer, of course, is nobody will believe you the second time. Emanuel got all indignant when he was challenged on this point.

MAHER: [overlapping] As long as the war goes on, I think the Democrats say to themselves, "We win votes every day, because it's an unpopular war." Which is sort of almost more cynical than they're probably-

EMANUEL: [overlapping] No, that is not - that is not - absolutely not, Bill. That's wrong.

DYSON: [overlapping] Well, whether they intend - well, here is the point - whether they - whether they intend to or not, the reality is the consequence is as - right?

EMANUEL: [overlapping] You don't think - you don't think - wait a second. You don't think Jack Murtha, when he came out his position about redeploying was - knew that - he was just doing it, letting this war go on, and everything like that. People aren't doing that for that reason. People ran - the people we got - some of the Iraqi war vets that ran - and then decided to go - and there were Democrats, some of them weren't by party, before that, we Democrats - they ran because they knew this party that wanted to end this war and bring these kids home. And that is exactly what we have to do.

But I don't see how you can argue anything else, given the facts.

Saying that we sent one bill with a timeline to the President in May, and because of one veto that's pretty much that, is beyond irresponsible. And it speaks to this opportunistic, yet status-quo-maintaining, mindset epitomized by Emanuel. I am not as down on the Democratic Congress as others, and I will defend them against claims that they didn't implement their agenda (4 of the "6 for '06" agenda items have passed, stem cell research was passed and vetoed) and that they have faltered on the budget, which is clearly a matter of Bush's total hypocrisy and intransigence. The Democrats have a right-wing noise machine, a President and practically the whole establishment against them. But on the war, they are simply being craven. And don't get me started about Iran.