Separate Afghan war funding bill needed-US lawmaker

[laststeamtrain]

Source: Reuters

Separate Afghan war funding bill needed-US lawmaker
Tue Dec 1, 2009 3:20pm EST


WASHINGTON, Dec 1 (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress likely will need to pass a separate spending bill next year to pay for President Barack Obama's troop increase in Afghanistan, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said on Tuesday.

Asked if there will be a separate funding bill for Obama's planned increase of 30,000 troops over the next six months, Levin, a Democrat, said, "I think there will have to be."

Congress has largely paid for the wars in separate emergency bills each year since fighting started in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in 2003, but Democrats had criticized that method under former President George W. Bush and had hoped to change that in 2010.

The Pentagon's spending bill for the fiscal year that started on Oct. 1 includes money for both wars, but does not cover Obama's planned increase.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSN01511614

[Ruby the Liberal]

1. Good.

Don't bury this in a Defense Appropriations bill. Make it stand on it's own.

[apnu]

2. Hopefully they will, that was one of Obama's campaign promises.

No more supplemental spending bills for war. I'm amazed (and depressed by complicit Dems who went along with it) that the Iraq war never, officially, appeared on Bushco's budgets. Nobody gave a shit for 7 years about that. Damn.

[Romulox]

5. Umm, what's the difference between a "separate" spending bill and a "supplemental" spending bill?

:shrug:

[apnu]

6. None really. I'm just saying that by Obama's own word, he's not supposed to do that.

But then this isn't Obama floating the idea is it?

(edited for clarity)

[mother earth]

7. Yeah, like he was going to get us out of the war too?

I've been really trying to believe, just don't see it any more. We are still in Bush world, the CIA & the military machine are pulling the strings while the insurance co.'s and big pharma fleece what little is left of the working middle class.

Say hello to third world status, I've never seen anything like this insanity.

[saigon68]

8. "BRING EM ON" shouted the PRESENT OCCUPANT

INSANITY

[Mari333]

3. yeah I called Levin today and let them have it

just one of the many I called. Vote against all war funds, or dont be re elected.

[Vidar]

4. Appropriate 30 cents.