Democrats Trade Our Troops in Iraq for Drought Relief and Domestic Spending Increases
Hill Close To Deal on War Funds
Democrats Would Drop Iraq Timeline
By Jonathan Weisman and Paul Kane
Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, December 8, 2007; Page A01
House Democratic leaders could complete work as soon as Monday on a half-trillion-dollar spending package that will include billions of dollars for the war effort in Iraq without the timelines for the withdrawal of combat forces that President Bush has refused to accept, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said yesterday.
In a complicated deal over the war funds, Democrats will include about $11 billion more in domestic spending than Bush has requested, emergency drought relief for the Southeast and legislation to address the subprime mortgage crisis, Hoyer told a meeting of the Washington Post editorial board.
______________________________________________________________
Yeah, I would say that's a complicated deal.
Double-dealing is always complicated and Democrats have shared a "wide stance" on this matter. Gone are the timelines they claimed were sacrosanct, gone is the refusal to fund (which is the Constitutionally mandated power of the Congress over the Executive) and in place of that they have given us, essentially, earmarks in place of our kids' lives.
And Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid think there will be no price to pay at the polls. They are wrong.
Our kids, who fight and die and suffer grievous wounds in Iraq, have become a price to pay. Can you believe that?
The Iraqi Parliament cannot and will not get off its own hands to legislate and the price to pay is our kids.
L. Paul Bremer sends home the Iraqi Army and the price to pay is our kids.
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz, Addington and Cheney wreck the greatest fighting machine the world has known and the price to pay is our kids.
Bush stamps his foot like a kid having a tantrum, stonewalls the Congress, threatens the rest of the world and the price to pay is our kids.
Nancy Pelosi takes impeachment 'off the table' and the price to pay is our kids.
America has seen fit to allow this whole military-moral mess slog its way toward the 2008 election (when they hope for but do not demand a solution) and the price to pay is our kids.
And we who cannot believe our eyes and ears, wonder why. For God's sake, why? I will tell you why. Because they are other people's kids.
* For more in-depth articles by Jim on Iraq War, check out Opinion-Columns.com