I've changed my mind about de-funding the war, Bush would just find a way around it

[Hippo_Tron]

I've argued thus far that Democrats could and should use their power to de-fund the war and do so without regard to the political consequences. This is what David Obey referred to in that video as literally not funding the body armor and taking the bullets out of the guns. My assumption was that there is no way Bush could possibly keep the troops in Iraq if they don't have the weapons to fight and he would have no choice but to bring them home. We may suffer political consequences, but so be it.

Well I've come to realize that I was wrong. If we were to do this, Bush would simply do what he does best. He would break the law. He would simply divert other pentagon spending into Iraq even though it is tagged for congress as meaning to go for other things. Sure at that point we should impeach him (hell we already should have) but I can't possibly imagine 16 Republic Senators and Lieberman voting for conviction.

The fact is that we're stuck in Iraq until 2009 because our President thinks he's above the law and the Congressional Republics are more loyal to their party than to their country. I think that the best thing we can do at this point is learn from this lesson and add provisions to the war powers resolution to make it actually enforceable.

[The Magistrate]

1. Quite True, Sir: Sad, But True

The unhappy fact is there is no means available by which the occupation can be directly brought to a halt in the present political circumstances. Worse, people who attack Democratic political leaders over this fact accomplish nothing, and provide cover for the Republicans' attempts to shift blame off themselves for the debacle.

What must be done is to propose, and carry at least in the House, bills that deliniate action to halt the war, that then are fillibustered by Republicans in the Senate, or vetoed. This will make quite clear to the people just who is refusing to do their will in this matter, and cement their understanding that the only way to see their will done is to see to it there are a damned sight fewer Republicans in office.

[Hippo_Tron]

5. If it were just the politics I would still be considering it

But it's not. The fact is that no matter what Congress does, Bush will just stick his fingers in his ears like a child and say "I can't hear you". If it comes down to adding a signing statement to the federal budget saying "I can spend any of this money on Iraq", he will do it. And I don't doubt for a second that he has appointed so many cronies throughout the federal bureaucracy that he will have no trouble getting compliance.

For the first time I can think of since Andrew Jackson we have a President who is publicly willing to admit that he thinks he's above the law. Nixon, at least tried to cover up his illegal activity and resigned when he was caught. You can't do anything about a president who ignores the law and a Senate that won't punish him for it, except be glad that he has less than two years left in office.

[wtmusic]

2. Can't share your pessimism

What is it up to now, $600M/day? That's a hell of a lot of money to divert.

Bush is f*cked, if Democrats find some courage. It's all in their hands.

[Hippo_Tron]

3. Oh, he'll find a way

He'll take the money from totally unrelated parts of the federal government if he has to... Education, HUD, Health and Human Services. You simply can't force a constitutional crisis on a President who doesn't care about the constitution.

[GreenTea]

4. WE have enough already allocated to bringing the troops home...Giving

Bush another 100 billion dollars of our tax money is just giving it or throwing it away to corporations like Halliburton, contractors, weapons makers and other war machine corporations who are there just gobbling up our tax dollars to the tune of soon to be 500 billion dollars...how much goes to the troops salaries a billion or two, doubtful, 2 billion is a lot of money, hard to even imagine how much that is...So wheres all the hundreds of billions of dollars going....This is a war for profits and they are stealing our tax dollars and want to continue stealing the billions they want to prolong the war for profit...And Bush will with his bullshit little plans, surge knows he can keep it going...Does anyone really understand how much money we are talking about? They have been and are stealing hundreds of billions of our tax dollars, calling it funding the troops...the tiniest bit goes to the troops....And I haven't even gotten to all the un-metered Iraqi oil the oil companies are in complete control of...Its simply a war for profit that these greedy republican criminals want to keep going as long as possible to continue the stealing...expand it to Iran if possible for even more funding to steal...meanwhile they get to accomplished another goal bankrupts SS and social programs...sorry no money it all went to fund the war on the terrorist! Its ALL about money and nothing more...prolong the war for profit any way possible.

[Hippo_Tron]

6. I agree, but there's nothing we can do about it

Like I said above, Bush will simply ignore congress if they deny him the money. He will literally put a signing statement on the federal budget that says "I can spend any of this money on Iraq if I want".

Find me anything close to 67 votes for impeachment and I'm all for it. Right now I don't think we'd get past 45 if we're lucky.

[bullimiami]

7. i cant agree that you dont fight with all of your tools because you think you wont win.

[Hippo_Tron]

8. I don't think we won't win, I know we won't win

The laws regarding executive power were written under the assumption that the president would follow them for fear of the consequences of not following them. When the framers were writing the sections of the constitution on impeachment and executive power they couldn't take into account party loyalty because there were no parties at the time.

Congress is unfortunately incapable of taking back its authority with merely 51 votes in the Senate.

[Hippo_Tron]

9. kick