[THS] War Bill Could Be Stopped Today With 144 Votes

[The Harder Stuff in news and commentary]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26033.htm

War Bill Could Be Stopped Today With 144 Votes

By Ryan Grim

July 27, 2010 "Huffington Post" -- Antiwar Democrats have a rare opportunity to
knock down a war funding bill, just days after Wikileaks released more than 90,000
documents confirming their worst fears about the direction of the conflict.

The House is bringing the bill up under a suspension of the rules, which require a
two-thirds vote. Only 144 votes would be needed to to stop the war funding. The
vote is expected to occur mid-afternoon.

The most recent vote on war money came July 1 and included an amendment to
fund the military occupation only for the purpose of withdrawal. That measure drew
162 votes of support. A tougher amendment -- to cut off funds entirely -- garnered
but a hundred votes.

The new House vote is required because the administration threatened to veto the
House bill since it rescinded a small amount of education money for one program in
order to offset other spending on education, police, firefighters and other state
employees. The program that was cut was a pet project of Education Secretary Arne
Duncan. Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey told the Fiscal Times that
the administration had recommended cutting food stamps instead.

Duncan's victory is a Pyrrhic one, as his strident objections led to all of the education
funds being taken out, which will lead to tens of thousands of teacher layoffs.
Duncan was objecting to the loss of $800 million in unspent funds that had been
dedicated to his "Race to the Top" reform. Instead, he lost the entire $15 billion.
Obey said today he will oppose the stripped-down bill.

The bill includes unpaid-for war money and some funds for aid to Gulf states, Haiti
and veterans. But much was taken out.

"Once again, war is being paid for with a credit card while investments in our
children's future are tossed aside. These investments -- $10 billion for teacher jobs,
$1 billion for summer youth employment, $5 billion for Pell grants, $701 million for
border security -- were cut from the war funding bill coming to the House floor
despite being fully paid for and not adding to the budget deficit," wrote a group of
progressive House Democrats Tuesday, announcing their intention to oppose the bill.
"They have been jettisoned in favor of further borrowed war spending. Today's bill
doesn't include anything to maintain first responder, police or firefighter positions
despite the dramatic need for those jobs in every community in America. We believe
this is fiscal insanity and a moral tragedy."

The White House veto threat, combined with a GOP filibuster, was enough to defeat
the funding bill in the Senate. On July 22nd, the Senate sent the stripped-down war
funding bill back to the House, leading to Tuesday's showdown. Nine years into the
war, the Senate approved funding on a voice vote.

"Stop cramming our wealth into the gullet of the military-industrial complex. No more
money for the Shiites, the Sunnis and the Kurds. No more money for the Tajiks, the
Hazaras and the Pushtuns. Charity begins at home," wrote Rep. Alan Grayson (D-
Fla.) in a letter to supporters.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), in a briefing with reporters Tuesday, pinned
the blame on the GOP for cutting social spending and insisted the troops on the field
must be given the resources they need. "We very much regret that the Republicans
again put our efforts at making sure 140,000 teachers aren't laid off -- the
Republicans opposed that. There were a number of other items [in the war bill]
including Build America Bonds, infrastructure growth of jobs that the Republicans
opposed, and so the supplemental was sent back to us as exactly the same thing the
Senate sent us, which we thought was incomplete," he said.

"The supplemental deals with funding those troops that we have in the field now.
Those troops are there; they've been deployed by us; they've been given a mission.
That mission has been, I think the president of the United States made it a mission
that is a doable mission and is a mission that the military and the civilian leadership of
the military -- the commander in chief -- agree with. And they're pursuing it. Now,
we may want to reconsider that in Congress. The administration may want to
reconsider it. There may be further debate about it but the fact is those troops are
there now and money to fund those troops -- we're told by the Pentagon -- will be
depleted as of the 7th of August, so that whatever we decide on policy in the longer
term does not in my opinion affect our obligation today to make sure that the troops,
as long as they're there, have the resources they need. So I think that the policy
issue is one thig, the reality of the troops on the group and the support that they
need, the resources they need, is an immediate demand. Until we bring them home,
they need that money."