Oh boy, I am madder than a hornet at Congress after reading this today....


I get it. If we don’t fund the war efforts, congress will be too busy coming up a way to pay for our troops to focus on other things… Bull-hockey! No social policy is worth the risk to our troops and their families. Stopping paychecks to military families just before Christmas for political points is way wrong. Disrupting supplies to our troops on the front lines for political posturing is unacceptable.

“Sorry Johnny. It isn’t a letter from Santa. It’s a KIA letter about your daddy who won’t be coming home because the supply lines were left unfulfilled. By the way, we have no funding for daddy’s paycheck or survivor benefits either. Maybe next year…”

Those that voted to block the funds are ***. They can vote to change a piece of social policy (or whatever) next term or when they have more seats at the table if they don’t like it, but risking the welfare of military families at Christmas and attempting to derail the funds for the troops for political gain is totally unacceptable…

I would also be livid if a defense spending bill was being held up, but this bill, like most of them was about a lot more than defense.

The first thing that needs to be done is to make a defense bill about defense.

It doesn't need to be loaded up with funding for everybody's pet hometown projects, or any items that have to do with anything but the defense budget.

Those are the things that will normally cause debate and holdup of a bill.

It doesn't matter whether Dem's or Republicans try to filibuster, they are always the bad side.

It happens nearly every year. I spent over 21 years in the Navy and we always had funds to get paid with, and fuel for our planes whether there was a bill passed or not.

Normally they just extend the current one until the new gets worked over and voted on.

bob

Pork-barrel earmarks from both sides of the isle is business as usual in DC. The earmarks (about 1,800 of ‘em worth about $4.2 billion) attached to this bill are objectionable and unwarranted, but not enough to vote to derail the other $622 billion in funding for our troops. The number of earmarks, while very disturbing, is quite low compared to recent history. Plus, we are already using a supplimental war spending package to fund the troops - and it is set to expire at midnight tonight.

Without this bill and with the supplimental set to expire, there would be no dollars flowing. That's why Gates called it a "must-pass" bill... Sure, congress would eventually get around to drafting a new war supplimental and then eventually calling for a vote, and eventually the President would sign it, but that all takes time and Gates warned of a "serious disruption in the military's ability to pay troops" once the current supplimental expired at midnight tonight.

That was the point, in fact. It wasn't that folks didn't like the Defense Appropriations Bill. They just wanted to waste time for political points. Grind Congress to a halt dispite the risks. I get it, but I'll never agree with putting politics over principle when it is a risk to our troops and military families... Social policies (like health care) can be undone down the road and/or blocked by other means without putting our military families and the troops at risk... "Win at any cost politics" isn't worth it to me when the "cost" are shovelled onto our soldiers, sailors, and airmen in harm's way or the paychecks that support their families back home...

What I think would have happened if the bill had failed to pass is that they would have introduced a continuing resolution which would have passed. This has always happened in the past with Military appropriations.
This would have continued spending, every one would be paid, etc, until the underlying problems had been resolved.
Remember that Defense Spending bills are a place for the anti-military crowd to stick things that would ordinarily never pass congress, then wait until the last minute to play chicken. Na-na-na we gotcha you have to pass this stinker now!
That is why the Military is often operating on extensions and continuing resolutions.

As for Congress and the Administration, any congress and any administration, politics is what they do 24/7, no pause for widows, orphans, or the military (or it seems for Christmas).

__________________
Ipsis Rebus Dictantitbus

It shows a lot of things about a lot of people in Washington. Personally I think they are all the same, and I think that most of the time the parties meet behind closed doors and hash out which side is going to take what stance on such and such issues, so they can put on their big shows (really, are they anything but?) of debates and arguments, well before any of it gets done.
They don't write their own speeches any more, they hire people to do it for them. They hire wardrobe consultants, image consultants, hair stylists, and more. Both sides pre screen audiences all the time, and they script the questions they are going to be asked at public events.
We get to vote for them based on the big Hollywood show they put on for us, and we get to later react in the ways they want us all to. Diversionary tactics at play, is all this any more than that? I keep wondering how long its going to take for everyone in this country to wake up and see what they are doing to this country down in DC.

One thing I find sickening, is that somewhere back in time, they adopted procedural rules that allow them to attach amendments to a bill, amendments that have absolutely zero to do with the bill. Like in this case, attaching a military spending clause to a health care reform bill.

__________________
Geoff. Since 1960.

Scripted, just like "professional" wrestling.... Smoke, mirrors and BS up to your armpits.

I agree with oldRoger's assessment. The Republican strategy was not so much a slap at the military (the Democrats are the experts in that field).

__________________
Southern Conservative