There are over seventy House members in the Out of Iraq Caucus and there are 48 members of the Blue Dog Coalition. They aren’t totally aligned against each other, as several members of the Blue Dog coalition are strong critics of the Iraq War and support tying timelines to any supplemental funding bill. But, in general, these two blocs are creating a headache for the leadership. What’s the problem?
The Democrats want to push through an economic stimulus plan and an Iraq War supplemental funding bill. But they don’t have enough money. Congress normally operates under a PAYGO rule, which means any new spending must be paid for with either offsetting cuts or new taxes. But Iraq War funding is exempt from the PAYGO rule. This makes it attractive to attach new domestic spending (stimulus) to the Iraq War funding as a way to get around the PAYGO rule. The Blue Dogs hate this idea because they don’t want to vote for new non-war related deficit spending. The Out of Iraq Caucus hates this because they don’t want to vote for a supplemental war funding bill that has no timelines, but they also don’t want to vote against a stimulus package.
But, if the leadership ties the two together they will force both groups to make very painful decisions. Will anti-war Democrats vote against helping out their struggling constituents? Will Blue Dogs vote against funding the war? And, yet, there is always the challenge of getting Republicans to support the stimulus package. Will they support it if it isn’t tied to the war funding bill? How will they abide by the PAYGO rules if the stimulus bill isn’t exempt?
This morning you can see the handwringing in articles at Roll Call, The Hill, and CQ Politics. For now, it looks like the House is not going to (completely) combine the bills, but that might not hold when they get over to the Senate.
Liberal Democrats in the House were likely pleased to hear that the supplemental would not be combined with any stimulus. They were worried that Democratic leaders would try to make them choose between voting to end the war and helping out people hit by the economic downturn.
“We don’t want the supplemental and the stimulus combined in any way,” said Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.). “We want the issues separated.”
But liberals also think the stimulus should be brought up first — taking care of the economy before taking care of Iraq. If, as Hoyer said, the supplemental bill could be on the floor late next week, there’s little time to get the stimulus done first.
Waters said she is concerned about “rumors” she has heard that leaders may keep the bills separate on the House side, but combine them on the Senate side.
But, according to Roll Call, there may be some combination even in the House.
Hoyer did not elaborate on how much money in domestic spending Democrats are mulling attaching to the measure, saying only that they are still in discussions.
Another provision “certainly under consideration” is including funds for military operations for 2008 and part of 2009, Hoyer said. The move would allow lawmakers to keep the war funded into the next president’s term.
The Majority Leader has also said some portion of the war bill will address domestic issues. In addition, Hoyer hinted that the measure could be followed by a second economic stimulus package being worked on now by Democrats.
But those are the only concrete details that Democrats are offering about a key measure that has powerful political implications during an election year.
After a series of meetings this week, House Democratic leaders are staying tight-lipped on their plan for proceeding, if there is one yet.
Emerging from a bicameral Democratic Caucus on Tuesday, House Rules Chairwoman Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) said there’s a “lot of consternation” over how to pay for provisions in the bill.
We are talking about $108 billion dollars of war funding here. Exempt from PAYGO or not, we don’t have that kind of money to be throwing into the futile cause in Iraq. And, in any case, if the Democrats try to help regular folks out by larding up the war funding bill with domestic spending, the president might veto it.
Last week White House Budget Director Jim Nussle told Senate appropriators that a “clean” supplemental is needed by Memorial Day and that Democrats should save their domestic priorities for the regular appropriations process rather than provoke a veto fight that would delay its enactment.
The senators brushed aside that suggestion and said they are eyeing the supplemental as a vehicle for spending on domestic priorities such as law enforcement grants and infrastructure spending.
Reading between the lines, I think Maxine Waters is probably correct. The Senate will find it necessary to combine the bills in order to get the 60 votes they need to pass a stimulus package. However, they’ll need 67 votes to override a veto, and therefore it looks like a trainwreck awaits us in the not too distant future.
I’m guessing that the $15 billion giveaway to home builder companies is making its way back into the equation, judging from the market action in that sector today.
This sector should be tanking after the news from this week (and from the last couple of years) but the stocks are up. The only logical conclusion is that our good friends in the Senate have deemed that these companies need some free money and will fight for it. They don’t fight about torture but giving banks and corporations taxpayer money–they’ll fight for that. Disgusting. And all the usual Democratic suspects are going for it. I hate to say it but for the first time probably ever I am on President Bush’s side. This taxpayer giveaway is a terrible idea. It will not stimulate the economy. And what are Democrats doing by giving handouts to well-connected corporations and banks when they should be showing they are the party of the middle class working families? Crazy. Disgusting. The Democratic party is broken.
that’s a perfect word for America.
Our country is exactly that: a trainwreck.
Crashed by the idiots and clowns we elected because we thought they had the skills and competence to run the show.
We find they are as dumb as, or dumber than, the rest of us.
sigh: things are never going to get better are they? It’s like a diagnosis of multiple scelerosis or multiple melanoma: maybe it won’t kill you right away, but it’s never going away either.
Well, it’s like the old saying. “You know how dumb the average American is? Well, by definition half of them are dumber than that.”
Sometimes I swear, we’re living in the middle of the world of the Marching Morons.
There is only one thing which is certain in all of this and in the end only it will matter. Bush will veto anything which is not a clean, unfettered and dedicated war funding bill. Therefore, the fact that the Democrats will never get enough Republicans on board to override anything which the President opposes that relates the war, especially funding; makes this mostly just a political exercise. Useful mostly for finger pointing and electioneering in the fall when issues of the economy, Americans fear of losing their homes and jobs and the general shitty state of the country becomes something which is debated by opponents vying for office.
A train wreck? Probably so. But after the perpetual train wreck which has been endured for the last seven plus years, what’s one more added to the tally? The Democrats erased their line in the sand early on in the debate about war funding. So how can they now expect to change the complexion of the game which they passively consented to by their inactions when they had the momentum and the backing of the public early on?
They have done too much up to this point to solidify their ineffectiveness in pushing back against the Republicans and this President. They held their dry powder on the shelf so long that, even though they never let it get wet, it is of no use to them now. Spark it all you want, it’s just not going to fire. At this point, electing more and better Democrats who have some fresh powder to bring to the table is the only way to effect change.
“There is only one thing which is certain in all of this and in the end only it will matter. Bush will veto anything which is not a clean, unfettered and dedicated war funding bill.”
My thoughts exactly. It doesn’t matter what the Dems do, Bush is going to veto anything they manage to get past the Repubs in the House and Senate unless it’s exactly what he wanted.
And so it will go until next year…
Why are we still having EMERGENCY supplementals seven years into a war?
ANY money for the wars must come straight out of the Defense budget and not from any place else. That budget must be balanced. All Defense departments get x dollars, and they can divide it between spying, torturing, killing, prison-building or the fancy new toys-for-boys like microwaves, robots, “rods from god” space platforms, etc., or pay for real soldiers with real benefits and real armor/support.
If they want more walls dividing Baghdad into ghettos and more ammunition to bomb a vacant field (as a demonstration of our capability outside Najaf last week), they have to balance that with fewer drones and tanks. If they want to fund space warfare, they have to cut spying.
BALANCE.
BUDGET.
The only reason the wars are increasing in costs is that the lawmakers keep handing the Pentagon a blank check for whatever it takes instead of asking for a budget in advance.
Why do we have injured veterans sleeping in their own shit or waiting 6 months for a mental check-up while unmanned drones and killer robots get funded? It seems that it would be cheaper to retire these generals and give them copies of the latest tactical computer game… so they can indulge their fantasies about a military with no human warriors, and the only thing that has to die for their ego is pixels. Even if we bought all of them a game and monthly subscription, that would be cheaper than the current military budget, and the country could use the offset savings for infrastructure HERE in AMERICA.