Lawmaker: Stop political games with war funds

Lawmaker: Stop political games with war funds
By Rick Maze - Staff writer
Posted : Thursday May 22, 2008 11:39:59 EDT

A key Republican accused the Democratic-led Congress on Thursday of “dereliction of duty” for allowing the military to reach the brink of a cash-flow crisis over funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, former chairman and now ranking Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, was referring to delays in passing a $108.1 billion Bush administration request for emergency funding for war-related expenses.

A supplemental funding bill to provide that money is mired in a complicated election-year process of horse-trading: adding enough nondefense items to secure votes to pass funding for an unpopular war. The result is a cramped package of defense and nondefense issues that White House officials said would be vetoed if Congress passes it.

“There is a time and place where domestic funding should be debated and considered on its merits, but that is not in a bill focused on the emergency needs of our troops,” the administration said in a May 15 policy statement on the war-funding bill.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has warned Congress that money in some key accounts, including Army personnel and operations funds, will run out by mid-June.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/05/military_supplemental_052208w/



uhc comment: Continued funding of the occupations is so wrong on so many levels. A $12,000,000,000 a month drain on the economy can not be good. The 1,200,000 barrels of oil the military burns a month can't be good. The 3/4 of a trillion dollars for the 2009 military budget can't be good.

The funny part is Cochran calls the 80% of this country who want out of Iraq derelicts. I sure hope there's Dem running against you, bucky.