Priority Iraq
The NY Times has a scathing editorial that shows how, mere days after vetoing the SCHIP bill, Bush requested additional funding for Iraq. When is he going to start putting his own people first? It’s shameful that so much money is being spent to fight a losing battle over there when the injured troops back home can’t even get their medical care or basic financial needs met without waiting for months on end. And don’t even get me started on health insurance.
Mr. Bush is threatening to veto most of the 12 domestic spending bills now before Congress because Democrats want to provide $22 billion more than the $933 billion he has requested. His argument? Something about the president’s responsibility to rein in lawmakers’ “temptation to overspend.”
This from a leader who turns federal surpluses into deficits, believes that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars can be financed on a separate set of books with borrowed money, and keeps having to go back to Congress for “emergency funding” because he cannot or will not tell the truth about what it is costing to fight these wars.
Mr. Bush’s latest emergency request is for $46 billion. That would bring the 2008 price tag for Iraq and Afghanistan to $196.4 billion. Starting at Sept. 11, 2001, war-fighting expenses total a staggering $800 billion or more. The nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments says that by the end of the year spending on Iraq will probably surpass that on the Vietnam War.
October 25th, 2007 at 10:08 am
Don’t get me started. Let’s keep our fingers crossed on the re-vote on SCHIP today.