Congress Sends Bush Budget Bill With Iraq Money

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: NYT/Reuters

By REUTERS
Published: December 19, 2007

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The House of Representatives approved a $556 billion bill on Wednesday to fund most of the federal government through September 2008, ending a year-long budget fight with President George W. Bush by also including new money for the Iraq war. The House gave final congressional approval to the bill, which was cleared by the Senate late on Tuesday. It now goes to Bush for his expected approval.

Anti-war Democrats protested the new round of Iraq money, which they said gave Bush a "blank check" to run the war. House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat, sounded resigned to at least another year of funding the war in Iraq, against his wishes. He said the only option for changing direction in Iraq was to "elect more progressive voices to the United States Senate" and "elect a president with a different set of priorities."...

***

Democrats in Congress fought with Bush all year, scoring some victories, in their push to spend more to improve domestic social programs such as early education for poor children, home heating aid for low-income families and expanded health care. But much of the fiscal 2008 budget fight centered on the Iraq war. The $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan included in the catch-all spending bill will inject enough new money to keep combat going through May or June, according to some estimates.

Its inclusion marked another defeat for anti-war Democrats in Congress who labored to link Iraq war money to timetables for withdrawing U.S. troops and bringing the nearly 5-year-old war to an end. But the money represents much less than half of the nearly $190 billion Bush had requested for the wars, most of it to be dedicated to Iraq. This was what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called putting Bush on a "short lease." It also means Democrats and Bush likely are headed for a renewed fight next year....

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-usa-congress-funding.html

[msongs]

1. yawn! dems in congress are not much better than the repubs on the occupation. nt

[Stuart G]

2. Let's get one thing straight...

This fight was supposed to be in September. We were going to fight to the death to stop funding this shit. I waited, and waited.
I don't recall such a fight. When lives are at stake, isn't it worth fighting? What is going on here? Who is in the majority?
Who won in November 2006? ...

[Stuart G]

3. As a result of this thread,

In the last 2 minutes, I decided to send money to Cindy Sheehan who is running against Pelosi. What the hell is going on here?

[davhill]

4. I think we need to stop

donating money to the Democratic election committees, because some of it would go to the pro-Bush, pro-War "Democrats" who allowed this funding to pass. We should only donate directly to confirmed anti-war candidates. I don't think they got the message last year that we didn't just want to borrow more money from the Chinese for social programs in addition to funding the continuation of Bush's personal war. We want the war to stop period.

[Stuart G]

5. again, I agree. and I am mad as hell.....

These damn election committees. I have written on the forms....."No money till they impeach Cheney" or no money till war funding has stopped........I can wait to give what little money I can..as you have stated davhill, only to those willing to try to save one life, any life over there, to stop this insanity. We have the majority. screw them. We are trying to save our soldiers lives. The lives of innocent people. What is this all about?............?????????????/////

[AwareOne]

6. The Democratic majority that we all hailed has turned out

to be a conspicuous failure. Bush still wins every battle, gets whatever he wants. Our experiment in democracy really is over, it's been over ever since Bush stole the first election and no one challenged him. U.S. Democracy R.I.P. 1776--2000

[galileo3000]

7. I wont give up even if I'm last.

As much as some may despair, this to will pass. Peace.

[SlingBlade]

8. Bunch of spineless assholes

We need to clean this goddamn party up
Get the fucking Liberman Liberals the hell out along with these fucking
Corporate Whores and get back to the Principles and Ideas that made this party
The Peoples Party, The Party of everyman, A Party that cared.

These assholes are a fucking disgrace, I’m getting ashamed of calling myself a Democrat because I don't want to be associated with these pricks and because I’m sick and tired of Freepers fucking shoving this shit down my throat and laughing all the way.

Fuck !

[Javaman]

9. with this recent act of being morons* enabler, that whooshing sound you just heard

was a majority of real dems leaving the room.

so who was it on here that said something about, "they know what they are doing!" or "pelosi is the leader and we must follow" (good robots) or "if we don't have unity we don't have anything". How is that working out now?

the house dems have left the party. They are not democrats. They are sycophants

[Emillereid]

10. Fuckin' Wimps! The lesser of two evils is still evil. This country is over

if we do not create an alternate progressive peace party. We have to face facts - the Democratic Party is nothing more than a more 'timid' corporate party. The power mongers in the Democratic Party are too entrenched and their pockets too full of corporate money for us to seriously believe that we can take over the party from within. We need to harness the energy of the millions of disaffected voters from all parties and form a united front against the corporatists.