Posted on 06/16/2009 3:58:10 PM PDT by jazusamo
The House approved a supplemental spending bill for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan Tuesday in a 226-202 vote.
The bill will now move to the Senate, where it is expected to be approved.
In addition to about $80 billion to fund wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the bill includes $5 billion in new borrowing for the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and $7.7 billion for flu pandemic preparations.
does it include the $100 billion for the euro banks?
OK now for the real question, what kind of evil amendments did they get away with sticking in it?
It says it’s $5 billion for the IMF.
A billion here, a billion there … my grandkids will not mind paying for all this. /s
5 billion for IMF, and money for the pig flu...why they dont have these as separate items..
yea, what’s a billion between friends /S
That %5 billion was the initial amount.
Accordingly, that amount can go upwards of $100+ billion.
WASHINGTON (Dow Jones)—The U.S. House of Representatives voted Tuesday to approve a $106 billion bill to pay for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq through September, in a vote that also provided $1 billion in funding for additional assistance to the troubled U.S. auto industry.
The bulk of the money allocated through the legislation will be used to pay for the troops serving in the two foreign wars through the remaining three-and-a-half months of the federal government’s fiscal year.
But it also created funding to pay for a program dubbed cash for clunkers that would allow owners of older, heavier polluting cars to receive a cash voucher upon trading it in for a newer, cleaner car.
The vote, at 226-200, was much tighter than that of an earlier margin in a vote on a House version of a war funding bill.
This is because the bulk of Republicans - almost all of whom had supported the legislation earlier - voted against the bill due to the fact that it includes $5 billion in funding to boost lending capabilities at the International Monetary Fund.
The funds will enable the IMF to lend an additional $108 billion to developing countries struggling in the face of the global economic downturn.
In the end, just five GOP lawmakers voted in favor of the bill, in an attempt to paint Democrats as out of touch with the priorities of average Americans.
Republicans decried the money as misspent, both because they said Americans are suffering at home and in need of assistance, and also because they said it could lead to the IMF lending money to enemies of the U.S.
Democrats defended the money, pointing out both that the U.S. generally realizes a profit from the funds lent out by the IMF and that U.S. exports depend on a strong global economy.
Lacking the support of the majority of Republicans, the Democratic majority needed to sway more liberal Democrats who had voted against the measure previously because of their opposition to the wars. They were successful in doing so, increasing the Democratic tally to 221 from 200 last month.
The bill includes $7.65 billion to ensure the federal government is sufficiently prepared to combat a possible pandemic of the H1N1 flu virus. The World Health Organization increased its warning on the flu outbreak last week to its highest level, indicating it now believes a pandemic is under way.
Also included in the legislation is money to pay for several foreign aid programs, such as greater assistance for Pakistan to help the Asian nation to deal with a burgeoning refugee crisis.
The funding bill is necessary because the Bush administration last year passed legislation to pay for the wars only until June.
Obama has said the separate war funding bill will be the last one, as from next fiscal year he intends to bring the costs of the wars onto the main public balance sheet in order to give the taxpayer a more accurate picture of the state of the government’s finances.
Thanks, I’ve heard them speak of the $100 billion but didn’t know the $5 billion could be increased.
Thanks for posting.
So if you can rebuild the downtown of a city of 200,000 people with only a billion dollars... that means we could rebuild the downtowns of 13 US cities of that size for the amount we are flushing down the toilet of the IMF.
WOW just WOW.
Keep an eye on this legislation; it seems prime material for DUmmie headsplosions.
“yea, what’s a billion between friends /S”
Or a trillion...or 12?
“in a 226-202 vote.”
We now know who the blue dog Dems are - if we didn’t already.
President Obama also personally guaranteed that he would stop the release of photos showing U.S. troops abusing detainees.
Thanks, neverdem. I hope Zer0 remembers that promise, he has a habit of changing his mind almost daily. Now I understand the difference in the 5 and 100+ billion.
It "believes" a pandemic is under way? How can it not know? This is just like SARS and the bird flu - according to the WHO, we already died from those. The WHO is just another bunch of money-grubbing b*stards.
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