The White House has requested an additional $81.9 billion package for Iraq and Afghanistan. Bad enough that we are spending such vast sums outside the regular budget on wars that were sold as cheap and easy. Now the wingnuts in the
House want to dilute the effectiveness of the package by cutting things that might have a positive effect.
...GOP lawmakers will propose cutting about $2 billion from the State Department and foreign aid portion of the measure, including some Afghan reconstruction aid...
These people are blind or insane or both. More below the fold.
About $570 million of the $2 billion Bush sought for
Afghanistan's reconstruction would be cut, an aide said. That included $25 million for starting a law school and money for building courthouses and community housing and helping venture capitalists make investments.
An additional $400 million that Bush wanted Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to control for U.S. allies -- split between economic and military aid -- was gone, the aide said. Some $150 million in food aid for refugees in Sudan's embattled Darfur province was also being excluded... [snip] Funds for operations and maintenance -- which covers costs like flying aircraft and repairing trucks -- were being cut.
It boils down to:
Money to kill people with, good.
Money to help insure people don't want to kill us, bad.
Money to keep the armed forces operational, bad.
Money for more toys, good.
Oh, and by the way, when those soldiers get back and their medical expenses bankrupt them, too bad (see Bankruptcy Bill)
The same G.O.P.-led majority doomed another worthy amendment that would have exempted from the means test military personnel who fell into bankruptcy in their civilian lives after being called to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.