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December 19, 2007

Senate approves $70 billion for Iraq-Afghanistan

Rick Moran
With little fanfare (and less publicty), the Senate passed a $70 billion war funding bill for Iraq and Afghanistan, handing President Bush another victory over the Democratic Congress:

21 Democrats, including Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (Mich.), and Sen. Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.) voted for the bill, while Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) was the only Republican to vote against it.


The House is expected to take up the Iraq-Afghanistan funding provision on Wednesday as part of its own debate over the larger $516 billion omnibus spending bill.


Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) offered the amendment adding the additional Iraq funding to the omnibus, and he and the White House took a very tough line on the issue, saying the overall spending bill would not pass without it.

“Let me be crystal clear: If this amendment does not pass in its current form, the underlying bill does not become law," McConnell said.


Bush has these guys in total disarray. The Democrats are demoralized and have taken to uttering fantasy in order to explain their abject failures:

If this is what winning looks like, then Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid wants no part of it.


Tired of Republican crowing about winning on Iraq funding, the budget battle and the energy bill, Reid (D-Nev.) shot back on Tuesday afternoon.


"We hear a lot of Republicans boasting ... because of their unprecedented obstruction," Reid said.


Indeed, Republicans have gotten their way in the battle over spending, have forced Democrats to jettison rollbacks of tax breaks for oil companies, and have beaten back attempts to pay for expanded children's health care programs with a tobacco tax increase.

Even though they're in the minority, the GOP, backed by President Bush, has used the filibuster to block Democratic priorities over and over this fall.


"Who's winning?" Reid asked a group of reporters. "Big Oil, Big Tobacco. ... Al Qaeda has regrouped and is able to fight a civil war in Iraq. ... The American people are losing."


Al-Qaeda, of course, is hardly "winning" anything - except perhaps the race to the infernal regions. But Reid, who famously said the Iraq War was "lost" and that the surge wasn't working - before any troops connected with it even got to Iraq - continues to live in his own little world.

It almost seems a shame to wake him up. As long as he's asleep, the GOP seems to be doing a pretty good job of making he and the rest of the Demcorats look bad.

Hat Tip: Ed Lasky



Posted at 09:22 AM | Email |

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