Iraq and GOP Spending

The Atlantic:

Deciding what to do next about Iraq is hard - on the merits, and in the politics. It's hard on the merits because whatever comes next, from "surge" to "get out now" and everything in between, will involve suffering, misery, and dishonor. It's just a question of by whom and for how long. On a balance-of-misery basis, my own view changed last year from "we can't afford to leave" to "we can't afford to stay." And the whole issue is hard in its politics because even Democrats too young to remember Vietnam know that future Karl Roves will dog them for decades with accusations of "cut-and-run" and "betraying" troops unless they can get Republicans to stand with them on limiting funding and forcing the policy to change.

By comparison, Iran is easy: on the merits, in the politics. War with Iran would be a catastrophe that would make us look back fondly on the minor inconvenience of being bogged down in Iraq. While the Congress flounders about what, exactly, it can do about Iraq, it can do something useful, while it still matters, in making clear that it will authorize no money and provide no endorsement for military action against Iran.

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Feed: http://crooksandliars.com
Title: Tim Ryan slams the GOP over spending…
Author: John Amato 
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 Ryan responds to the WATB complaints by the Repubs over the the new spending bill that was just passed.

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Ryan: …on top of all that they [Republicans] leave the new democratic majority an absolute budget catastrophe for us to deal with. And over to course of those 14 years the republican congress and the republican president borrowed more money, more money from foreign interests than all of the previous presidents combined. So now we're going get lectures from the republican majority on how to run the budget process. Now we're going to get lectures from the most incompetent, ineffective congress in the history of this institution, Mr. Speaker, the history of this institution.

This party will not be lectured about veterans benefits. We will not be lectured to by the Republican minority about how to balance a budget. And we will not be lectured to about investments in this country. You look at this C.R., and you look what we put in. We are not going to be lectured to by anybody. We've made promises and accomplished more in the last few hundred hours of this congress than that Republican majority has in the last 14 years. We implemented pay-go so we will balance the budget. We made some difficult decisions with the C.R. so we can move forward, and we're not going to be lectured to. Because we made promises and we delivered.

Look at the first 100 hours, Mr. Speaker. Just the first 100 hours. We cut student loan interest rates in half. Once fully implemented will save the average person taking out a loan almost $5,000. We raised the minimum wage. We allowed the secretary of health and human services to negotiate drug prices on behalf of the Medicare recipients. We repealed the corporate welfare to the energy companies that that majority, the Republican majority put in place and we're taking that money and investing it into alternative energy sources. We are doing things positive for the American people.

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