The Absolute Power of Congress: Funding
Indeed, particularly with regard to war/military funding, Congress is constitutionally required to review that funding every two years. Meaning, every sitting congress is constitutionallly guaranteed a bite at the war-funding apple. Including this one. To wit:
Article 1, Section 2 of the US Constitution:
Clause 1:
The Congress shall have Power...
Clause 12:
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years.
Previous authorizations of authority and blank checks of money are irrelevant. This Congress, the 110th, must pro-actively vote to continue our military engagements or they end. Period. End of Story. End of War.
This means that when it comes to questions of funding, Congress generally has the upper hand in these negotiations. This, usually, sets the terms of the funding debate, since the president simply must come to Congress and get them to authorize the expenditure of funds for the war, since the constitutional default position is NO FUNDS AT ALL.
To shut down government funding you need either a majority in either or both Houses of Congress to refuse to pass a funding bill. OR, you need a 41-minority in the Senate that is willing to filibuster any funding bill that comes up. Thankfully, we now have majorities in both houses, so this is entirely doable, if our leadership will get behind it and make sure that their caucus will ultimately support them after the shutdown begins.
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Broder's Concession
And that brings us to the key point that David Broder, in his Washington Post Op-Ed today, wants Democrats to concede:
From the start, Democrats ought to concede one big point: Absent any readiness on their part to cut off funds to the troops in Iraq, those forces will be there as long as George Bush wants them to remain. Once that point is conceded, Bush should be called upon to pay some attention to the Democrats' demands -- and the public opinion that supports them.
Broder is right to call this point a "big" one, because it is pivotal to determining the eventual outcome of this war-funding debate. If the Democrats are not willing to cut off funding, then the reality, which Broder rightly recognizes, is that George Bush has already won the debate. It is only a matter of time before he can trot out into the Rose Garden and declare victory. Ironically, once Broder's Concession is accepted, it essentially relieves the president of any need to "pay some attention to Democrats' demands," as Broder obtusely advocates for the next step in negotiations. Once that position is conceded, Congress begins any negotiations from a position of weakness, rather than one of strength. Why? Let's put these in some simple, either-or statements that encapsulate and tease out the issue:
If Congress accepts Broder's Concession, then the debate becomes framed in a way you'll no doubt recognize:
"EITHER the President accepts a funding bill with timelines/restrictions on funding (effectively ending the war in 2008) OR the Congress will have to fund the war without restrictions/timelines (allowing the war to continue indefinitely)."
Obviously, in this scenario, Bush has no reason not to veto and has every incentive to wait out Congress to get everything he wants: a new blank check on the war. Yet, let's back away from Broder's Concession and notice how the terms of the debate change in Congress's favor:
"EITHER the President accepts a funding bill with timelines/restrictions on funding OR the Congress will pass no funding at all and the War ends now."
To paraphrase what's behind Door #2: The president either accepts the timelines and restrictions on funding (effectively ending the War in 2008), or it bloody well ends NOW, goddammit! Your pick, Mr. President.
Which negotiating position would you rather be in? In which case, dear students, is the president more likely to sign the bill, rather than veto it? This isn't rocket science. It's actually quite simple to grasp.
In one case, the country is forced to accept a war without end. In the latter example, the President is forced to accept that the war WILL end, he only gets to choose whether it ends now or it ends later.
Ultimately, this is why what Senators Levin and Obama said about funding the war and "not playing chicken with the troops" is such a travesty. They demonstrate a lack of congressional will to maintain their own negotiating position. Why aren't our Senators in the majority defending Congresses' prerogatives? Why are they declaring surrender when the fight (over the veto, in this instance) has not yet even been joined? Do they want to end the war, or not? We shall see the truth of this over the course of this Congress. Because the underlying truth is that, to echo Howard Dean, This Congress has the power, right now to end this war. It is merely a question of will.
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Strategies Going Forward
There are any number of ways this process can work itself out, but I personally prefer a progressive combination of several ideas, implemented in stages, that have already been tossed around:
- The "Blank-Check Funding in 3-month Increments" Strategy
- The "Gain more Republicans" Strategy
- The "Shut Down the War" strategy.
First, current reports are that the war is funded currently through most of July. That's enough to fund most of the President's boneheaded "Surge". Aside from that, come Labor Day (September) some insiders like Andrea Mitchell are saying that more Republicans might be getting and ready to crack. Johnathan Singer at MyDD.com is skeptical and figures that Republicans will simply kick the ball down the field another 6 months rather than bolting from the President's strategy. That may be so, but we should still give them the opportunity to defect, as the 2008 elections will draw ever nearer and the political pressure on those Republicans to create daylight between themselves, Bush, and his war will only increase.
So, having failed in getting Bush to accept the timelines, the Congress, if it is to pass funding should do so such that funding runs out again in November or December, meaning that a new supplemental will have to be debated and voted on AGAIN in September or October. This gives Republicans a new chance to support the timelines or support the president's veto, to live up to their threat to defect or to (yet again) be proven hypocrites. Indeed, it could very well be that at this point we have enough Republicans to override a veto and win this debate outright. If so, yay. We win at this stage of the game, sans government shutdown.
If not (as is probably the more likely scenario), then Congress should once again pass a blank check supplemental that funds the war through March 31, 2008 (the cut-off date passed by the Senate), with the understanding that there will be no further funds, other than for withdrawal, appropriated for Iraq. In context with this, if the President is willing to sign the supplemental with the timeline requirements, we should give him the House-supported withdrawal date: August/September 2008. If he wants to be bullheaded, then in our shutdown, we should stick to the Senate's earlier March/April date.
Then, after the beginning of next year, Congress should break up the funding and pass two or three funding bills that will cover the rest of 2008 and the 110th Congress:
- An Afghanistan Supplemental (that funds the undisputed operations in Afghanistan only, separating out Iraq)
- An Iraq Withdrawal Funding Supplemental (that exclusively authorizes the expenditure of funds ONLY for Iraq withdrawal and possibly limited Iraq anti-terror operations and "over the horizon" logistical support programs). Make sure that this bill is delivered to the president on the March 31 cut-off date, and not before. If he doesn't sign it, then he leaves the troops in Iraq without funds. If he does sign it, then he HAS to use that money for withdrawal.
- A "Support the Troops" bill that funds things like VA benefits, soldier salaries, etc. as well as implements the troop rotation/rest/training requirements recently proposed by Jack Murtha. Passed separately, if Republicans vote against (or uphold a Bush veto), we can claim (yet again) that THEY don't support the troops and THEY support the President's strategy.
Now, what's obviously missing? Funding for ongoing operations in Iraq. Which means that come March 31, 2008, there will be no more funding for Iraq. And the Iraq War will effectively be SHUT DOWN simply by Congress sitting on its hands and refusing to fund it.
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Not Your Father's Government Shutdown
Now, it is important to note that Newt Gingrich LOST his government shutdown confrontation with the president, so why should the Democrats expect different results? While we should learn from Gingrich's mistakes, several reasons immediately come to mind that distinguish the two situations.
First, Gingrich wanted to make huge cuts into domestic programs that had broad public support, leading to 60% of the country to support President Clinton in that standoff.
Second, Gingrich's shutdown caused a public panic, as seniors, in one example, started worrying that they wouldn't get their Social Security checks and would suddenly find themselves destitute. Or, families showed up to National Parks for their carefully-planned vacations only to find a "Closed due to government shutdown" signs on the gates. The impact of the shutdown on the public was broadly felt. An Iraq War shutdown, by contrast (and like the Iraq War itself...), will not have such a broad, direct impact on people's lives.
Iraq funding is also handled via a Supplemental outside of the regular budgeting process. This means that Congress can cut off funding there without jeopardizing grandma's social security checks, national parks, or other essential domestic services/programs.
Third, Gingrich tried to implement his agenda against the will of voters. In 1994, some districts may have supported his 'Contract for America' and its highly-touted Balanced Budgets, but they certainly didn't vote for the steep budget cuts Gingrich wanted, much less for him to shutdown the entire government as a means of getting those steep cuts implemented. This is in direct contrast to Iraq, where Democrats were specifically elected to get us out of the Iraq fiasco:
Newt: No public mandate to shutdown anything.
Pelosi and the Democratic Congress: Specific public mandate to "shut down" this war.
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Taking Several Bites at the Apple
If Democrats accept Broder's Concession, they should only do so, for now by passing only a short-term blank-check supplemental, rather than a year-long one. Put another way, Congress is guaranteed a bite at the war-funding apple, but they don't have to eat the whole thing at once. They can take several bites spread out over time. Time is in our favor on this in the following senses:
- The 2008 elections will draw ever closer.
- Public sentiment against the war will only worsen/harden, further undercutting the president's position.
- There is more time for Dem politicians and activists to organize themselves and rally public support for their plans, further undercutting the President and the Republicans already-precarious position.
- It gives Dem leaders time to plan the political/media strategy that WILL absolutely be required once their "Shut Down" of the war, if that's how it happens, occurs. This is necessary to make sure that Bush's counter-offensive doesn't work and to ensure that we succeed where Gingrich failed.
Thus, over time, political pressure will only increase in our favor, short of some miracle that magically saves Iraq, a highly dubious proposition at this point. The safe political bet here is certainly in the opposite direction.
Second, doing it this way gives congress an "excuse" for shutting down the war next March. All of their actions this year can be used to build their case that "We tried to work with the president, but he refused, so we've been forced to take tougher action to force the president to listen to the will of the people." Thus, taking action to shut down the war at that point will be more politically palatable, after the Congress can show that it dutifully tried the other possible routes and failed due to presidential stubbornness.
Lastly, the Shutdown could still fail, just as Gingrich's did. After March 31 passes, Congress may try to stick with its guns for a while, but if public opinion turns against them (certainly not a given with an unpopular war), the effort could still collapse. If so, THEN (and only then) can congressional Democrats justifiably claim that they did everything in their power to end the war.
Before they reach that point, though, we in the grassroots should not accept excuses for any half-measures. For the Democrats already have it within their power to end this war. Majorities in both Houses have already agreed to the possible deadlines (March/April 2008 in the Senate and August/September 2008 in the House). Now, all that they have to do is pick one of those dates and enforce it by being committed to doing NOTHING once the deadline passes and the funds for the war run out.
