Dead presidents
Big shout out to the Democrats in Congress for attempting to do what they’re supposed to do when the majority of American people oppose a war that the president won’t stop waging. Yay for finally effectively exercising the power of the purse in our name and spinning shut the tap: we want an end to the war and an end to paying for it, too.
Sen Mel Martinez, (R Florida), seems to care little for such Constitutional details, uninterested even in the necessary exercise of representative governance. He told reporters that Democrats should just accept that they can’t change the war policy. “The commander in chief is the guy in charge of running the war and they can’t affect that,” he said. “They are not going to get the votes to do what they are trying to do, so I don’t see why they would continue to do that.”
Official estimates put total taxpayer spending on the war at $1 trillion. A Joint Economic report published by the Council on Foreign Relations breaks down the spending like this: “The total economic cost of the war in Iraq to a family of four is a shocking $16,500 from 2002 to 2008. When the war in Afghanistan is included, the burden to the American family rises to $20,900. The future impact on a family of four skyrockets to $36,900 for Iraq and $46,400 for Iraq and Afghanistan when all potential costs from 2002 to 2017 are included.”
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Well, of course the cost of ‘war’ is going up, Up, UP. And the deficit climbs higher. And the interest on the money borrowed also keeps clibing. How else did you think Bush, Cheney, et al., were ever going to repay the money-lenders who got them elected?
Exactly. Question is Why does it take six years and a trillion dollars before there’s any significant congressional pushback on unpopular presidential warring? A president decides to go to war. There’s no legal or constitutional way to prevent his doing so. But seems to me the “power of the purse” is not the power that the Framers thought it would be…. It appears to be nearly impossible for lawmakers concerned with getting reelected to cut off funding for a war and risk taking the blame for “putting our brave fighting men and women in harm’s way” etc, as if a president who sees funding being cut and not redeploying the troops isn’t the one responsible for any resulting harm. Cutting off funding is the only congressional response, I think, and it just basically doesn’t work. Our representatives just won’t do it. It took like 14 years or something for congress to finally in 1974 cut off the funding that was fueling the war in Vietnam. Shock and Awe and Enduring Freedom and all the rest of the hideously named operations that will end up constituting the Iraq debacle have been unpopular for years. Gay marriage? Flag burning? If we’re considering ever again amending our constitutional, I propose it have something to do with increasing the power to end presidential military gambits not more than three months after they have begun!