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Tens of billions in new Afghanistan war funding cleared Congress late Tuesday, even as the House easily upended a liberal challenge to the increased U.S. military presence –and drone attacks—across the border in Pakistan. The back-to-back votes buy precious time for President Barack Obama to show progress on his strategy in the region. But even as the anti-war movement remains weak in Congress, Obama can’t ignore a growing split among House Democrats over the cost of his military commitments at a time of tighter budgets and economic troubles at home. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Dave Obey (D—Wis.), who had managed...

WASHINGTON -- In a take-it-or-leave-it gesture, the Senate voted Thursday night to reject more than $20 billion in domestic spending the House had tacked on to its $60 billion bill to fund President Barack Obama's troop surge in Afghanistan. Instead, the Senate returned to the House a measure limited chiefly to war funding, foreign aid, medical care for Vietnam War veterans exposed to Agent Orange, and replenishing almost empty disaster aid accounts. The moves repel a long-shot bid by House Democrats earlier this month to resurrect their faltering jobs agenda with $10 billion in grants to school districts to avoid...

Washington, D.C. — While President Obama golfs his way through the Gulf Coast's oil-drenched environmental calamity, another crisis is looming across the Potomac. America's military, in harm's way in a two-front war, is about to get staggered by a double-whammy below the belt. Unfortunately for those who wear our nation's uniform, the commander in chief and his cronies in Congress are throwing the punches. The first blow will land in the next two weeks unless Sen. Harry Reid's Senate and Nancy Pelosi's House of Representatives can get their act together to pass a supplemental appropriations bill to fund combat operations...

The Pentagon is “seriously planning” for the possibility that Congress will not pass emergency war funding before lawmakers head to the August recess, said Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell. The Pentagon is developing an “emergency plan” to deal with the lack of supplemental funds for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Morrell said at a press briefing Wednesday. Morrell did not disclose any details of the plan, because Defense Secretary Robert Gates has yet to consider the options under that plan. “Needless to say, all of this is extraordinarily disruptive to the department," Morrell said. “But we've had some practice...

Funding for troops in Afghanistan and Iraq could be held up by the war brewing on Capitol Hill among congressional Democrats and the White House. When the Senate returns to take up the $45.5 billion supplemental appropriations bill that passed the House on July 1, the central issue to resolve will be how best to appease Big Labor. Like most supplementals, this bill began with a singular purpose: paying war expenses. It since has been larded with billions in wasteful projects and programs designed to attract the vote of the left-of-center members with no fondness for the military. Among the...

FDL has learned that in a last minute move, Nancy Pelosi sneaked language into the rule that the House is voting on tonight regarding war funding. Embedded in the rule is the requirement that the House will vote on the deficit commission’s recommendations in the lame duck session if they pass the Senate. The commission, co-chaired by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, is packed with members who favor the raising the retirement age to 70, means testing, and private accounts. Many also support investing 20% of the Social Security trust fund in the stock market. It’s ironic that yesterday Pelosi...

Pelosi Sneaked Approval of Vote on Debt Commission Recommendations into Rule Regarding War Funding, Vote Happening Tonight................ FDL has learned that in a last minute move, Nancy Pelosi sneaked language into the rule that the House is voting on tonight regarding war funding. Embedded in the rule is the requirement that the House will vote on the deficit commission’s recommendations in the lame duck session if they pass the Senate. The commission, co-chaired by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, is packed with members who favor the raising the retirement age to 70, means testing, and private accounts. Many also support...

House Appropriations Chairman Dave Obey said he will hold off on new Afghanistan war funding until there is some resolution of a long-delayed economic relief bill extending aid to states and the jobless as well as tax breaks for individuals and business. With a July 4th Pentagon deadline looming, the chairman’s new posture is a blow to the White House and more than ever, explicitly links war funding with liberal concerns over domestic priorities. The so-called “extenders” bill—now bogged down in the Senate—carries with it $24 billion that Democrats want to help cash-strapped states meet their Medicaid payments next year....

Senate Democrats are trying to turn the tables on Republicans when it comes to war funding, accusing the GOP of playing partisan games with funding for troops in a war zone. The attacks represent a full evolution in political gamesmanship over the nine years of emergency war funding, as Republicans used to attack Democrats for deploying procedural tactics or adding legislative riders to war funding bills. “It’s unfortunate we’re beginning to see more partisan attacks on funding for troops in the field and disaster aid,” Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), said Wednesday. “Members who voted to send our troops into harm’s...

What? Not only has the Democrat president dragged his feet for weeks on end deciding whether to send reinforcements to support the 17,000 men and women of the arms forces that he chose to send to Afghanistan. His hand picked General, General McChrysal has called for 10,000 to 40,000 troops, not to win the war but just to maintain status quo which is a travesty. Now unbelievably Democrats are stealing troop funds meant for guns and ammo. How in the world is this happening and is this how Democrats govern? Apparently so! $2.6 billion dollars is what Democrats have so...

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced Friday it will launch a series of district-specific radio ads targeting vulnerable Republicans who voted against President Obama’s controversial war supplemental package. As a matter of national security in years past Republicans have shown tremendous support for similar measures, however last week they voted en bloc against the $106 billion appropriations bill. The Democratic Leadership and the DCCC would be content to let the public believe Republicans were “playing politics” with the troops, having voted against the emergency legislation out of pure spite for the president. Over 100 Republicans voted for the bill when...

(Aftermarketnews.com) Following the House's approval last week of a $4 billion "Cash for Clunkers" bill, Detroit News has reported that the House and Senate have now agreed to add a $1 billion “Cash for Clunkers” provision to a $106 billion war supplemental bill. This agreement calls for the same requirements as the measure approved by the House last week. Car owners could get a voucher worth $3,500 if they traded in a vehicle getting 18 miles per gallon or less for one getting at least 22 miles per gallon. The value of the voucher would grow to $4,500 if the...

WASHINGTON, June 8 (Reuters) - A $100 billion bill to fund U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is rapidly accumulating extra items such as money for military aircraft the Pentagon doesn't want and possibly a scheme to jump-start sagging auto sales. The cars and planes are not directly linked to the U.S. war effort. But they are typical of Congress' penchant for loading bills with unrelated spending in hopes the funds will sail through on the strength of the main legislation. President Barack Obama originally sought $83.4 billion for the two wars and more foreign aid for countries like Pakistan....

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- Even as Democrats controlling Congress continue to struggle with a long-overdue war funding bill, they are starting work on a series of spending measures for next year that are doomed by veto promises from President Bush. The first of those 12 bills, funding agency budgets for the budget year beginning Oct. 1, would award an almost 6 percent increase to the Homeland Security Department. A House Appropriations panel approved the $39.9 billion measure unanimously on Wednesday. The measure is likely to earn a Bush veto threat for costing too much and it's unclear whether Democrats will even...

In a move likely to doom billions of dollars that Democrats had sought for domestic programs, Senate leaders agreed Wednesday night to focus a funding bill on Pentagon operations in Iraq and Afghanistan but allow a vote on a huge expansion of veterans' education benefits. The Senate was slated to vote Thursday to provide $165 billion for the wars, funding those operations until the new administration takes over next year. GOP leaders were expected to try to block the amendment aimed at the GI Bill — authored by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va. — to send a "clean" war funding bill...

5 YR AMNESTY ATTACHED TO WAR FUNDING BILL BY Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) TRAVESTY Disastrous Ag Jobs Amnesty Attached to Iraq Funding Bill! Millions of Illegal Aliens and Their Families to Get 5-Year Amnesty! The pro-amnesty coalition is once again attempting to force another illegal alien amnesty onto America. Sen. Feinstein sponsored a proposal to grant a 5-year amnesty for up to 3 million illegal aliens and their families into the Iraq War supplemental bill. Knowing that the war funding bill is desperately needed to support our troops in battle overseas, the amnesty plan was attached covertly in attempts that...

In an amazing turn of events, the House of Representatives today voted AGAINST the supplemental funding for the war in Iraq!! The bill would have provided $166 billion in war funding, the largest single provision since the war started in 2003. In a move that no one expected, dozens of Republicans voted "present," which is the same as abstaining on the vote.

House Democratic leaders are putting together the largest Iraq war spending bill yet, a measure that is expected to fund the war through the end of the Bush presidency and for nearly six months into the next president's term. The bill, which could be unveiled as early as this week, signals that Democrats are resigned to the fact they can't change course in Iraq in the final months of President Bush's term. Instead, the party is pinning its hopes of ending the war on winning the White House in November. Bay Area lawmakers, who represent perhaps the most anti-war part...

After yesterday's all-night Iraq war "defeatathon," as radio talk-show host Laura Ingraham described it, House and Senate Democrats continue to illustrate why Americans so distrust them when it comes to national security. Antiwar lawmakers have been losing momentum of late, to such an extent that U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and representatives of liberal humanitarian organizations like the International Crisis Group found it necessary to warn that a precipitous troop withdrawal could trigger a humanitarian catastrophe for Iraqis. So yesterday, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid staged an overnight session where senators debated abandoning Iraq. Mr. Reid came up eight votes short...

July 19, 2007 By Jennifer Harper - The tidy cots, the earnest speeches, the candlelight vigil. After staging a 21-hour debate over the war in Iraq on Tuesday night, Sen. Harry Reid pined for drama, publicity and pundit chatter. Did the Nevada Democrat's dream of buzz and popular appeal come true? Well, not exactly. "It was a smoke screen. Senators talk all night of ending the war and bringing our troops home, and they still give Bush billions," peace activist Cindy Sheehan said yesterday. "This was a buzzless venture if I ever saw one," writer Lucianne Goldberg said. "I think...