Loans Option Seen as Unlikely in Final Version of Iraq Package (WP/AP)

[VolcanoJen]

Lots of interesting comments in this article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29826-2003Oct28.html

Excerpt:

Republican senators who sought to include loans as part of an $87 billion package for Iraq and Afghanistan acknowledged they had little hope of prevailing Tuesday as House and Senate negotiators tried to work out final details.

In another difficult question before the negotiators, they rejected, mainly along party lines, a Democratic proposal to compensate federal employees on active duty with the National Guard and reserves by making up the difference between their federal salaries and their service incomes.

<snip>

"I don't have the vote totals on it, but my sense is they probably have located the votes to get the package" without loans, said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan. Brownback supported the loans and was a participant in the House-Senate conference meeting Tuesday.

Another Republican senator who supported the loans, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, said she wasn't optimistic. She said failing to include the loans "would be very unfortunate."

[pasadenaboy]

1. The loans are stupid in my opinion.

Why would you want to saddle Iraq with debt? That's what happened to Germany after WW1, Look where that got us.

[VolcanoJen]

2. Good point, but the only alternative is that the American taxpayer...

... get saddled with debt, and if that's the case, then they should at the very least be informed about it.