Today the House of Representatives passed a $124 billion supplemental funding bill for the troops in Iraq and Afghanistan by a vote of 218-212, which President Bush promptly vowed to veto. Being as the President had expressly requested this funding, how does this make sense? If you were to read CNN.com, it may be difficult to locate the heart of the conflict. Directly tied to these funds is a specific timetable for troop withdrawal which Bush had specifically rejected and swore to veto were it to come across his desk. In essence the Democrats in Congress put forward and passed (along party lines) a bill to expose the President’s stance on timetables for withdrawal, which has been well-known for no less than a year. And at what cost? If this $103 billion – the other $21 billion was pork used to buy enough congressional votes to pass the bill – is not approved by mid-April, the military will be limited in training and deployments. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is playing with the lives of our servicemen (and women) and the President’s response oozed an anger that he has rarely shown since 9/11.
In an earlier post I state that this shows why it is important to understand the 2-party American political system. If you vote for a conservative Democrat on your belief that he/she is the better candidate, you must consider that you are also voting for the military-disdaining Nancy Pelosi, socialist Bernie Sanders(who caucuses with the Democrats) and others. Think about this next time you pull the lever.
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That's one of my biggest complaints about this whole topic. A bill will never get through b/c some Senator will get some totally unrelated item attached in the fine print. They end up arguing over the fine print and not even what the bill is about. Our budget, when I was in the AF, was always delayed because of this. Someone would tie something really stupid and totally unrelated to the DoD budget - like protecting an endanged tree frog. Rediculous. We go without a budget because they argue over a tree frog. This is a way both parties can defeat a bill they don't support if they are in the minority. It's just another way politicans can circumvent the system and not allow our government to truly represent the majority that elected them.
ReplyDeleteBush is a confusing personality. He just shouldn't be the president. The end.
ReplyDelete"The end."? Your argument that "He just shouldn't be" due to his confusing personality is terribly convincing. I think the majority of U.S. voters will also be swayed by this compelling point of view. Besides, I told you so.
ReplyDeleteBy way of an observation of Annie’s comment I'm going to have to make a generalization about those who are left-of-center. There is a tendency of that side of the political spectrum to try to silence debate.
ReplyDeleteOn college campus’ they accept with open arms extreme lefties like Noam Chomsky and Cornel West, yet relatively mainstream speakers like David Horowitz are shouted down if not directly assaulted by flying food. Al Gore has proclaimed the debate on Global Warming is over and the issue is as settled as gravity, despite the hundreds of respected scientists disputing his mockumentary.
Of course the irony is that the left will always howl about “censorship” by those who think that a crucifix in a jar of urine is not art worthy of the taxpayer-funded National Endowment for the Arts or that a person who voted for George W. has the right not to buy a Dixie Chicks CD.
It is as if the lefties sole purpose is to prove me right. As a follow-up on my last comment, please see today's news where it was revealed that Karl Rove was pelted by rocks after a speech at American University last night. It is really difficult being right so often.
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