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 exempt?
This morning you can see the handwringing in articles at Roll Call, The Hill, and CQ Politics.
