Redstate

54 Days and Counting

By California Yankee Posted in Congress — Comments (3) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Caught in a bald face lie when he said there was no rush to get the supplemental war funding bill to the President because he wrongly claimed Defense Secretary Gates said it wasn't needed until May, Senate Majority Leader Reid has come up with another excuse to try to avoid the blame for delaying the supplemental funding to support our troops fighting the war. Now Reid is relying on a Congressional Research Service memo, conveniently dated March 28, to get the main stream media to report "the Army could finance the O&M (operations and maintenance) of both its baseline and war program ... through most of July 2007" by shifting around money in existing accounts.

I say conveniently dated because the Congressional Research Service's website only posts memos dated as recently as March 27 making it impossible for us to review the March 28th memo. Nevertheless, let's assume for purposes this argument that the memo actually says what Reuters reports. Even if it is possible for the military to move funds around, that just moves the negative impact of the Democrats delaying the money needed by the troops fighting the war.

The pork-laden legislation Pelosi and Reid designed to guarantee defeat in Iraq and to force a presidential veto waits in congress. Pelosi, in her rush to visit the one of the original state sponsors of terrorism, couldn't even be bothered to appoint the House members who will meet with the Senate delegation to reconcile the House and Senate versions of the war funding measure. So Pelosi has neatly delayed the meetings required to reconcile the two bills until the middle of April when Congress gets back from its Easter break.

Read on ...

After the bills are reconciled, the legislation will be sent to the president, who will veto it immediately. Because the Democrats do not have the votes, even with the few turncoat Republicans, the whole process will start over. It has already been fifty-four days since President Bush submitted his Iraq war emergency supplemental funding proposal. It looks like it will be another month before the Democrats send the legislation for its promised veto.

Money will have to be moved around so our troops fighting the war are supported. Defense Secretary Gates has spelled out the effects of the Democrats forcing the military to make such moves:

“If the Supplemental is not passed by April 15th, the service will be forced to consider the following kinds of actions:

(1) curtailing and suspending home station training for Reserve and Guard units;

(2) slowing the training of units slated to deploy next to Iraq and Afghanistan;

(3) cutting the funding for the upgrade or renovation of barracks and other facilities that support quality of life for troops and their families; and

(4) stopping the repair of equipment necessary to support pre-deployment training.

Don't take my word for it - watch the video:

Will it be August before the Democrats send the president a bill that provides the necessary funds to support our troops fighting the war?

The Democrats should stop playing politics and fund the troops without trying to legislate defeat, handcuffing our commanders, and buying votes the DEmocrats need with tens of billions of dollars in pork spending.