streiff at Redstate has the must-read details of the latest Democrat lie regarding funding for our troops. The President has warned Democrats that if they don’t get him a ‘clean’ supplemental bill to sign by April 15th, that Congress will in effect be shortchanging the military and not giving them what they need to fight the war. Democrats, in turn, are saying that they have until the end of May to sort out the supplemental, which is complete horsecrap (to put it delicately), as strieff explains:
The fact is, funds do start to run out on April 15, just as Secretary Gates said. The fact is that while reprogramming authority will allow combat operations to proceed, the bill payer will be just what Secretary Gates said: quality of life expenditures for troops and their families, equipment repair, real property maintenance, and procurement. And while a later supplemental can restore budget authority what it can’t restore is the lost time.
Of course it doesn’t matter to them if barracks, family quarters, and hospitals can’t be maintained. It doesn’t matter to them if equipment needed to train troops for deployment or to support disaster relief operations domestically isn’t repaired. It doesn’t matter to them if training for troops deploying to combat have their training curtailed. The “slow bleed” is what they are after.
He characterizes what the Democrats are doing as a “misdirection.” I call it outright lying.
And now, a very important message for the Dem party ‘leadership’ on the issue of the Iraq war.
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What a real man. God Bless the soul and memory of Chris Mason.
Comment by Marshall Art @ 3/31/2007 - 1:11 am
I don’t get where THE BIG LIE is- according to RS- with what Think Progress is stating. It’s own reference to the CRS report states:
Congress has passed legislation to fund the troops and efforts for the Iraqi Police Action, and more. If Bush vetoes, that’s his option - but he’s going to have a tough time convincing the public that the delay should be blamed on the Democrats.
I had to laugh at Bush’s statment that “members of Congress need to stop making political statements”. Isn’t that why we have a Congress? To represent their constituents wishes? Obviously he’s having a hard time transitioning from the rubber-stamp do-nothing congress of the past six years.
Comment by tom @ 4/1/2007 - 3:11 pm
OK, tom….so you want the DoD to cut back on maintenance, training, supplies, etc., for the troops in order to prevent running out of the funds to conduct necessary combat operations. Got it. We’ll remember that next time you guys whine that you support the troops and we shouldn’t question your patriotism.
If you want to end our work in Iraq, then have the guts to defund it, period. Go ahead. Make my day.
You say that this Congress is representing their constituents’ wishes? Fine…show me one congressman who ran last year on a platform of adding pork to a bill that unconstitutionally interferes with the Commander in Chief’s role regarding deployment. If you think this Congress was elected to get us out of Iraq, take some responsibility and advocate that they defund it completely. Or are they (and you) just too scared of the political repercussions when the impact of their cowardice becomes apparent?
Comment by Great White Rat @ 4/1/2007 - 6:18 pm
No tom this is not why we have a Congress. Maybe this’ll help.
Comment by forest hunter @ 4/2/2007 - 8:52 pm
Couple of points regarding this timeline:
1) If the Bushies would treat the wars in their budget like on-going wars that they are, then they wouldn’t need to complaing about the timing of “emergency” supplemental bills.
2) As the CRS report states the DOD can move monies from training budgets (scheduled for later in the year) to fund current priorities. As the AP reported in the last week “The steps under consideration include borrowing from training, maintenance, personnel and procurement funds set to be spent later in the budget year, which runs through September.” “They have become routine in recent years.” In other words, that’s how the Pentagon did it last year when Bush signed the 2006 “emergency” supplemental on July 15! Suddenly the DOD need to keep straight books? Uh huh.
By the way GWR (aka Dirty Harry?), I personally would support a defunding of the troops. I know I’ll hear the shrill cries of “you’re not supporting our troops”, but I don’t buy it. I support the troops, I don’t support the war. It’s not my problem if you can’t differentiate.
Hunter - I see you’ve progressed to reading level 6. Congratulations!
Comment by tom @ 4/3/2007 - 5:57 pm
tom chokes on his dribble glass:
I support the troops, I don’t support the war.
Yeah, you support them so much you want them to lose. I can differentiate nonsense when I see it, tom.
Quitting now is like quitting chemotherapy early. You want immediate relief, but you’re not thinking about really nasty consequences down the road. But you’re probably not concerned. You’ll dance around in your giant papier-mache heads - about the only thing the fringe left has managed to do well - right up to the time we have to fight the islamofascist lunatics here, thanks to you.
Comment by Great White Rat @ 4/3/2007 - 10:26 pm
GWR - Care to comment on either of my valid points? I didn’t think so. You’d rather blather on about “winning” the War in Iraq, the definition of which contines to change. First we’re spreading democracy, now we’re just hoping to leave a Shiite dominated government that can “defend itself”. Sounds like a real win to me!
And then your trot out the tired, simplistic mantra that we should fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here. What does this mean? They don’t know how to find us or are too busy “defending” their hated Shiite brethren from US occupation? Help me out here, wise one. Seems to me all we do is provide a recruiting tool and training opportunity for them. We already know them come and go in Iraq at-will.
So, I suppose your show of support for the troops boils down to slapping a magnet on your car or flying a flag from your porch. Oh- and you want them to WIN! Just like we did in all the other wars since WWII.
Comment by tom @ 4/4/2007 - 9:40 am
tom, if you made a post with valid points, it probably got lost somewhere. The only one I see from you is the one at 5:57pm on 4/3 with the hogwash in it.
However, to address those points anyway…
(1) Once you take the elementary civics course you need for that G.E.D you’re working on, you’ll know that the appropriations all come from Congressional legislation. It’s not like the President can simply run down to the B.E.P and have them run off a couple of hundred million when it’s needed.
(2) Thanks for the admission that the only way around the Dem’s little political gamesmanship is to reduce the funding for “training, maintenance, personnel, and procurement.” Now, in your world, that may not marginalize the effectiveness of the armed forces, but the rest of us know better. Here’s a test that might bring it home to you: try not eating for a week (that’s the ‘procurement’ part, see). And see if you’re up to full strength after that. And no, I don’t mean going on the Cindy Sheehan ice-cream diet.
Then tom pulls the tinfoil hat on tight:
And then your trot out the tired, simplistic mantra that we should fight them over there so we don’t have to fight them here. What does this mean?
Jumped into the Wayback Machine and set the date for September 10, 2001, eh? Here’s what you clearly do not get: there are people out there with a 7th-century mentality who want us all dead. Not just me - you too, no matter how much you serve their useful idiot function. Your childlike faith that if we all just abandon Iraq and come home tomorrow, they’ll give up those ideas - well, it’s touching, but it’s also completely out of touch with reality.
Comment by Great White Rat @ 4/4/2007 - 10:14 pm