Here's a bit of good news for your Friday I came across. It seems another principled Democrat has decided to take a stand alone. Rep. David Obey, D-WI, has joined Chris Dodd among the ranks of those willing to be seen taking an action, rather than writing sternly worded letters and non-binding resolutions.
Today's WOOHOO moment was reported on NPR last night and online in Time:
Obey chose last month to announce his intention to shelve the President's annual supplemental request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — $200 billion for 2008 — until Bush consents to a timeline for withdrawing U.S. combat troops from Iraq. Bush may have the veto, but he can't force Obey to move that bill out of committee.
Maybe some of you have already heard about this pronouncement, but it came across my screen today as soothing as the all-day rain to my drought-stricken North Carolina neighborhood. A man with power is using it to help people. I was beginnging to think that only happened in storybooks, revisionist history tomes, or foreign countries.
"I was trying to demonstrate that it was rampant hypocrisy for Bush to say: 'Ooh that $20 billion in education, health care and sciences is going to unbalance the budget,'" Obey said in a ghoulish tone, shaking his hands for effect. "'But, ooh it's a national necessity to borrow $200 billion for this misbegotten war in Iraq.' Ten times as much money."
Obey's bold move has drawn an immediate indignant reaction from the right, which is fuming that soldiers in the field could be left in the lurch when the current funding runs out. Obey welcomed the furor. "To me that means the message got out just a little bit," Obey said.
Please oh please oh please could we hear more about the Rethug indignation in the MSM? About how awful it is to provide health care to people but how great it is to blow away as much money as we can print to occupy a country and arm both sides of its civil war? If Obey said this last month, surely there must be plenty of wingnut angst to talk about. Whine away!
House Budget Committee Wednesday held a hearing on new estimates that the cost of the war in Iraq will reach $2.4 trillion by 2017, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Really? Gee, I seem to recall that a certain legislator's remarks (Pete Stark) during the SCHIP debate were so controversial as to be requested to be stricken from the record - a request denied by the acting Speaker of the House. Let's see, the controversial remarks were:
I'd just like to point out, under the Republican's plan, by 2017, we probably will have killed 20,000 soldiers in Iraq, spending $200 billion a year...
I'm good at math...let me multiply that out...$200 billion a year for 10 years...I've got it! $2 trillion! Even less than than the Congressional Bugdet Office estimate! What a bargain. Good thing they left those words in the record. Maybe we can hold the congress to that deal - do we get to spend the extra .4 trillion somewhere else? Can I suggest where we might spend it? Maybe Rep. Obey has some ideas.