Lately, there's been a lot of discussion about Congress' ability to control Bush and his insane desire to throw ever more young men and women into body bags in Iraq. Many options are discussed, but fundamentally people don't seem to have much hope that Bush would obey any laws that Congress passes. It seems that any solution proposed is denounced by pointing out that Bush will ignore it. Often, this is used as justification for impeachment, because Bush doesn't leave us any other options.
Don't get me wrong, I'm all for impeachment (immediately, if not sooner). However, in my opinion, all the discussion so far has focused on a narrow range of possibilities: defund the troops, place a cap on troop numbers in Iraq. Those are fine possibilities, but as everyone knows it leaves Democrats vulnerable to "not supporting the troops" attacks. Yet, there are many other options that could be used to pressure Bush without placing a single soldier in more harm than he already is in. The Power of the Purse is far more powerful than most people seem to understand.
I have no doubts that none of these ideas would even make it to committee. I merely present them to show the possibilities of what could be possible if we had a Congress capable of leadership and daring.
Here are two possible avenues of attack I see.
- Defund Bush
Everyone is fully aware that the present war is bankrupting our nation. If we have any hope of saving our budget, sacrifices need to be made. Who better to make sacrifices than the people who got us into this mess? Congress could repeal Bush's pension and withhold his salary until every US soldier is out of Iraq, and that's just the beginning. The 2008 Budget says:
For the Compensation of the President and White House Office,
..... $187,370,000, of which $1,000,000 shall remain
available until expended; ... and $1,600,000 shall remain available until expended for the repair, alteration, maintenance, and improvement of the Executive Residence at the White House: Provided, That the compensation of the President includes an expense allowance of $50,000 ... for travel expenses of $100,000 ... for necessary expenses for the White House ... for the necessary expenses of the Executive Residence at the White House ... for the necessary expenses of the Offices and Councils in the White House account ... (including not to exceed $19,000 for official reception and representation expenses); and for the hire of passenger motor vehicles: Provided further, That no such funds shall be considered as taxable to the President
(Snipped for brevity)
Obviously, the White House is a historic landmark and can't run to shambles, but cutting his expense account and travel expenses would be a good start. He can pay for his own lawyers just like everyone else, and I don't see any reason Bush should keep his tax-exempt status. If Congress got some serious courage, the Secret Service's Domestic Protectees program costs an estimated $903 million in 2007. I'll be nice and say that Bush can keep his protection, but maybe he should be charged for Laura and the brats. Air Force One and Marine One can go too. Obviously, these budget cuts could be applied to Cheney too. Congress should make it clear that these are just temporary cuts to make sure we can afford to continue paying and arming the troops. The cuts will expire when the troops are gone.
- Hey, they said they wanted a lean military!
This one's a tricky one because of the "supporting the troops" argument, but if done properly it could really punish Bush and save tons of money. I mean, really, why do we need almost 10,000 nuclear weapons? Only 6,000 are currently operational anyway. Bush loves his nukes, so cutting the stockpile in half would really shock the Lunatic-in-Chief and put a crimp in his plans to nuke Iran.
Rummy had a good thing going when he started shutting down military bases. Lets take it a little further. Japan isn't really very keen on us occupying Okinawa anyway, so we can give that back. Close Guantanamo too, and lets get out of Germany. I don't have the full list of US military bases abroad, but out of possibly 1,000 military bases abroad, I'm sure we can find more that we can cut while avoiding the "supporting the troops" slander. Even better would be to cut the $30 billion going to KBR and their ilk. Get rid of the mercenaries!
Unfortunately, the President seems to only care about his War of Terror and himself so Congress can't hold a domestic agenda hostage. Still, if Congress had some real courage I am certain that they could blackmail even Bush into withdrawing all the troops.