The fearless Democrats are about to give Bush $178 billion dollars for Iraq and Afghanistan. They want to do it on the sly, before the next election, though they do plan to “defy” Bush by sneaking in some additional spending, including money for Jim Webb’s GI bill. The most unpopular president in United States history (and the worst) has decreed that the bill must be clean of domestic spending. What are the chances that the Democrats will even score a PR victory on this? They will undoubtedly cave, as they always do, and will be unable to turn the national conversation to Bush’s callousness toward the vets.
At this point, we are beginning to talk about serious money being wasted on these wars. This new bill, the amount of which will draw no gasps from our media, the Republicans or, regrettably, most Democrats, is more than enough to pay for Hillary Clinton’s health plan (the best of the two plans on offer from the remaining candidates). We are routinely told that health care is unaffordable, yet we are flushing more money down the toilet in Iraq, both short term and, it appears, long term) than it would cost us to reform our health care system, the single most important economic issue we face.
The founders gave the Congress the power of the purse precisely to prevent executive overreaching. They assumed that Congress would have the institutional guts to stand up to a president, particularly one that was universally despised. No such luck.
Post a Comment