WASHINGTON - As President Barack Obama and other world leaders meet in Italy, a global survey released Thursday reflects wide concern that governments won't meet their budgets in this economic climate - and a universal preference to respond by cutting services rather than raising taxes.
Congressional approval to continue funding of the ongoing war in Iraq, a major segment of the $90 billion supplemental appropriate package, passed on Tuesday thanks to heavy-handed pressure by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., against anti-war Democrats.
This has led to great consternation here in her home district in San Francisco, where anti-war sentiment remains stronger than ever.
Over the past few days, we
reported
on how the White House and Democratic Congressional Leadership waged a
dirty campaign to scare up votes to support another $106 billion in
funds for their wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Now, several of
the so-called anti-war Democrats who left their principles at the House
coat check on their way in to vote Tuesday are trying to explain away
their hypocritical votes.
Days ago, a warning shot from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue landed with a thud on Capitol Hill, near some recent arrivals in the House. The political salvo was carefully aimed and expertly fired.
In a vote that should go down in recent histories as a day of shame
for the Democrats, on Tuesday the House voted to approve another $106
billion dollars for the bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (and
increasingly Pakistan). To put a fine point on the interconnection of
the iron fist of U.S. militarism and the hidden hand of free market
neoliberal economics, the bill included a massive initiative to give the International Monetary Fund billions more in U.S. taxpayer funds.
Thirty-two Democrats broke with the Obama administration and House
Democratic leaders Tuesday to oppose a $106 billion supplemental
appropriation to maintain the occupation of Iraq, surge more troops
into the quagmire that is Afghanistan and fund the International
Monetary Funds anti-social policies of forcing developing countries to
sacrifice programs for the poor in order to bail out big banks.
But that wasn't enough to block approval of the measure.
Today, the House of
Representatives is scheduled to vote on yet another supplemental
funding bill , this time providing nearly $80 billion to continue
waging the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (the total bill is now at $106
billion). And, just like they have done repeatedly in years past,
progressive Members of Congress should vote against this funding and
end our nation's descent into a disastrous quagmire in Afghanistan.
In 2007, 82 Democratic members of
Congress signed a pledge. They would never again vote to fund the war
in Iraq without plans for troop withdrawal.
Republican critics accused them of demagoguing the war. Of using our
soldiers as a political pawns, of not meaning what they said.
Those who signed that pledge need to cast their vote against the
Supplemental Appropriations Act on Tuesday and prove them wrong.
The White House and the Democratic Congressional Leadership are
playing a very dirty game in their effort to ram through supplemental
funding for the escalating US war in Afghanistan and continued
occupation of Iraq. In the crosshairs of the big guns at the White
House and on Capitol Hill are anti-war freshmen legislators and the
movement to hold those responsible for torture accountable.
Can Jane Hamsher's internet army teach Rahm Emmanuel and Timothy
Geithner a lesson about accepting the input of progressive Democrats?
That would be change I could believe in. Here she makes the case
against progressive Democrats caving in to leadership pressure that
they vote for the War/IMF Supplemental:
