Victory: Democrats roll over on Iraq/Afghanistan war funding; Update: Spending bill package passes
Update 10:58pm Eastern: Yeah, I’m watching C-SPAN. The motion to concur in the House amendments to HR2764, the omnibus spending bill, just passed…76-17, with 1 present. Here’s the wire dispatch.
The Senate on Tuesday night passed a spending bill combining funding for 14 Cabinet departments with $70 billion for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
By a bipartisan 76-17 vote, senators approved the massive bill, which bundles 11 annual appropriations bills funding domestic agencies and the foreign aid budget for the budget year that began Oct. 1. Earlier, by a 70-25 vote in the Senate, President Bush and his GOP allies won a major victory in passing a measure providing $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — without restrictions that Democrats had insisted on for weeks.
The twin votes sealed a budget deal between Bush and Democrats, ending months of battling over the budget.
But the result on domestic spending created a divide between Republicans who thought it was a good deal, such as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, and those who said it was too expensive and larded with pork-barrel spending…Conservatives estimated the measure contained at least $28 billion in domestic spending above Bush’s budget, funded by a combination of “emergency” spending, transfers from the defense budget, budget gimmicks and phantom savings.
Bush was ready to sign the bill, assuming the war funding cleared the House on Wednesday.
Update: Here’s the 70-25 roll call vote:
The bad news, of course, is that this money is attached to the behemoth soending bill that guts the border fence and undermines homeland security.
***
Reprinted by permission of Chip Bok and Creators Syndicate
Hoist up the White Flag. The Democrats surrender again:
The Senate voted Tuesday to provide $70 billion for U.S. military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, handing a victory to President Bush and his GOP allies on Capitol Hill.
The 70-25 roll call paved the way for the Senate to pass a $555 billion omnibus appropriations bill combining the war funding with the budgets for 14 Cabinet agencies.
Bush was ready to sign the bill, assuming the war funding clears the House on Wednesday. Democrats again failed to win votes to force removal of U.S. troops or set a nonbinding target to remove most troops by the end of next year.
“Even those of us who have disagreed on this war have always agreed on one thing: Troops in the field will not be left without the resources they need,” said Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.
The roll call vote isn’t up yet. It’ll be posted here. But the votes on two failed timetable resolution are up. Take a look. First up: Levin Amdt. No. 3876; “To express the sense of Congress on the transition of the missions of United States Forces in Iraq to a more limited set of missions as specified by the President on September 13, 2007.”
Next: Feingold Amdt. No. 3875; “To provide for the safe redeployment of United States troops from Iraq.”
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I love the smell of Victory in the evening.
How convenient…Clinton, Dudd, Obama not voting.
Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
Thank you Iowa for keeping Clinton, Dodd, Biden and Obama from voting!
Lost huh, who is lost now?
The notion that the US will ever vote their troops to war and then just tell those families who made the sacrifice ‘just kidding’ is being buried. There will be no more Vietnams — In to win, or stay out.
…I guess that includes Congress when they finally get around to funding us.
It was about time.
Same “not voting” still coming up. Why should anybody vote for them? Sorry to say, people will.
Right behind that vote the Senate Dems lost on the AMT vote to keep their record intact.
Tarpon
I agree with your post 100 percent.
Never again will there ever be anything resembling the embarassment of our country and the hatefulness to our troops that Vietnam wrought….never again.
Oh to be a fly with a bunch of nutroots.
Docflash #10, I could only imagine their leaders on the phone with them now.
Never underestimate the Democrats desire to go home for the Christmas Holidays…that they do not recognize.
The bill also deletes $105M from the DOE budget for Yucca Mountain in Nevada. (This site is where they tested nuclear weapons for 40 years so there will be no condos built in the vicinity.) This is Reid’s idea to gut the only high level nuclear waste disposal operation in the US. This in effect exposes the public to the waste stored all over the US in decaying containers that are vulnerable to terrorism.
Another demonstration of how our politicians play politics/games with our lives.
Michelle, you should look into this. Highly dangerous radio-active waste has no place to go because of this.
A hollow victory: our troops are funded but the feckless leadership still has their hands tied.
I caught this vote while helping my mother-in-law. Pure crap. My first thought was why do they bother wasting time on these “amendments” when there is so many other things to do. Way to go you stupid Wisconson voters (present company excluded of course). Keep putting that waste of a senator back in there just so you can feel like he’s “doing something” Nuts!!!
I also watched as my Junior senator Mr. Cardin voted Yea. Way to cover your nutroot butt, you coward!
As for the Levin amendment, when I heard him say that it was a non-binding “sense of the Congress” vote, I knew that this would be a cover vote for all the nutroot senators who voted against the previous Feingold amendment.
Can they find anything else to waste their (and our) time on??
I get so sick watching C-Span. This is supposed to be the the best this country can come up with?
Where’s my waste basket?
What he said.
Does anyone know how many of these ‘worst approval rating of any congress in History’ Dems are up for re-election in ‘08? or their states?
Now would be the time to get that information out there so we know who NOT to vote for.
(as if we don’t already, but there may be some noobs out there who could use the info.)
If they don’t exercise their obligation to vote on matters for the constituency, why should the constituency vote for them?
I LOVED the cartoon, btw.
I am still extremely steamed about the way this was rammed through both houses gutting any illegal invader controls. I guess we will have to settle that one ourselves, because the bastards we sent to DC to fix this just gave us the finger. I have a feeling this will cost many of the so called “Blue Dog” Democrats their cushy new jobs. People on both sides of the aisle will not be pleased and would love to see every incumbent thrown out of office on their lying crapweasel butts.
The only victory I see is the Democrats look like idiots for trying to surrender to the enemy in a war we are currently winning. I am very pleased our troops in both Iraq and Afghanistan will be funded. I agree with other posters no more Vietnams! Thank God the Goracle invented the internet so we have people like Michelle able to spread the news of what our Government is trying to sneak by us.
I also can’t wait to see the outrage come April when Congresses failure to act on the AMT will bite 23 million of us in the butt. Hearsay has it that the average tax increase will be $2,000. Talk about being stuck on stupid going into a major election year.
I still find it beyond unacceptable that our personnel -in harm’s way- needed to wait for this.
The fact that there was even an argument that left our personnel high and dry while in combat enrages me.
PB - it is unacceptable and we’ll have our say soon enough. I don’t want to count my chickens before they hatch but I am beginning to think that Dems don’t have a snowballs chance in hell of winning the WH if they keep this up.
They continue to go against the tide. Most Americans want our border secure, our troops funded, less not more taxes, etc… The more they show of themselves the less likely they are received well. You know the metaphor “like putting lipstick on a pig…” She’s still a pig.
Remember, in order to vote an incumbent out, you need to have a challenger to vote for.
Last time anyone dared take a poll on the subject, some 75% of all Americans supported Term Limits for Congress. That support cut across all categorizations, age, gender, race, party affiliation.
Professional politicians, for obvious reasons, don’t support this, so if we’re going to get it, we need to pressure them, starting with the state legislators.
Michelle, I know you’re frustrated by some aspects of the current legislation, but I really think it’s in our best interest to avoid framing this as, “they surrendered to defense spending authorization.”
Say what you want about other aspects of the legislation, but I think we are missing out on a golden opportunity to portray this as, “the Democrats are joining the fight.”
The benefits of doing so would be;
1. It would show a united front against our enemies.
2. It would unhinge the far left and contribute to the already developing party fracture.
3. It might get more members of Congress and Americans to actually route for victory.
I can’t believe that these Democrats thought they could hold back funding for U.S. forces in harm’s way to bully the President into handing them a political victory. That is all this was about, Democrat fundraising for the ‘08 cycle.
They honestly thought they would be able to spin the vetoes as “Bush vetoes children”, “Bush vetoes troops in the field”. The people who follow this stuff closely never fell for that sham, not for one second.
The Democrats in Congress have internal polling that alerted them to their failure to convince people that Bush was to blame for Congressional incompetence.
Their plan went over like a whiffle boat.
Maybe Harry “the body” Reid was right when he said “the war is lost”, if he meant the Democrats war against the President. Yes, he’s a loser.