$50 billion here, $50 billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money

That kind of sums up my feeling toward the latest financial sleight of hand associated with funding Dick Cheney’s retirement the Iraq War, to wit, the latest request for a supplemental to the supplemental, or another $50 billion in previously undisclosed spending for the Iraq (and Afghanistan!) wars, running their current costs to over $3 billion per week.
This, boys and girls, is the one thing a Democratic Congress could do: it can cut off funding. It doesn’t need Republican permission to do that– because the Dems get a veto in reverse: they can either not bring this to the floor, or not pass it. And that’s that. The war ends, because it can’t be paid for.
But, despite the fact that the American people have made it abundantly clear that they have the Dems’ backs on this, in order to play out a 2008 Presidential campaign issue, and most importantly, because they fear David Broder and Tim Russert more than any of us, we know we can expect the Dems-in-majority to hold some kabuki hearings (if that) followed by the issuance of a blank check for $50 billion more payable to the order of “George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney, in trust for the United States of Amurka”.
And we won’t even think about what $50 billion (let alone that amount tenfold or more thus far spent) could do for national infrastructure, or education, or health care, or any of the other stupid priorities that only stupid (and probably gay) liberals think government is about, instead of manly stuff like discretionary wars that make us look tough, even if they do no good (and quite a bit of harm). Which is what really counts. Take that, Defeatocrats.