Congress blinks

0 Comments | Gazette, The (Colorado Springs), May 30, 2007

Congress late last week did what seemed inevitable from the outset, passing a bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through Sept. 30, to the tune of about $95 billion. The bill was approved without a timetable for beginning a withdrawal of American troops, as Democrats wanted, or even imposing standards regarding troop training, readiness and rest requirements.

Technically, it could be counted as a "win" for President Bush, since he effectively used a veto to face down the Democrats. But given the mounting casualty numbers in Iraq, no one in the White House should be gloating.

In the process, Democrats demanded and got more punishment for taxpayers, in the form of provisions that spend some $17 billion more than Bush had requested, including money for hurricane relief, farm aid and $60 million in subsidies for West Coast salmon fishermen. Colorado's ranchers and farmers also received money for losses resulting from drought and harsh winter weather, though we've said all along that a war supplemental bill was an inappropriate vehicle for delivering this assistance.

We also have niggling doubts about whether the funding for Colorado ranchers and farmers is justified. This drought is many years in the making, so it can hardly be called an "emergency," and the Department of Agriculture has numerous programs for helping with such contingencies. As well, we've never seen hard, objective numbers on how many head of livestock were lost in last winter's blizzards since the first, rather vague (and possibly sensationalized) loss estimates were made. Before the level of damage was fully and accurately assessed, members of Colorado's congressional delegation were firing off press releases and making floor speeches claiming a multi-billion dollar bailout was needed.

Democrats also won an increase in the federal minimum wage, from $5.15 an hour to $7.25, in three separate installments, which economists almost universally say will end up harming the very people it is ostensibly intended to help.

Despite grumbling from anti-war activists, this was the only possible outcome. However they might feel about how ill-advised the war was in the first place, or how poorly it has been conducted to date, congressional Democrats were not about to leave themselves open to the charge that they were leaving troops in combat areas without continued funding. Bush vetoed a previous funding bill with deadlines and timetables and Congress failed to muster a veto- proof, two-thirds majority.

It was a win for Bush in another way. He got a bill without timetables, and what the Democrats won -- more spending and more federal mandates -- reinforces the idea that, despite the big- spending record of the Republican-dominated Congress, Democrats remain the party of big government. Whether Democrats will experience fallout from this in the 2008 elections is an open question.

It is more difficult to assess whether the protracted wrangling in Washington did anything to bring the end of the Iraq war any closer. The current funding bill lasts only through September, so more scrutiny will be brought to bear on the war in the coming months. And although they blinked first in this staredown, Democrats seem primed to continue the fight. "I think the president's policy is going to begin to unravel now," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, with an unseemly glee. "We're going to keep coming back and coming back," promised Rep. Rahm Emanuel of Illinois, chairman of the Democratic caucus.

While few Americans want to see funding cut off abruptly, most want to see the war ended unless things can be turned around in short order. Even Republicans who have supported the president so far would rather see the Iraq war in the rearview mirror than in the headlights as the 2008 elections loom. But this is an extraordinarily stubborn -- or firmly committed -- president who seems to believe continuing the war as part of the anti-terrorism campaign is less dangerous than ending it. Having thwarted Democratic efforts to force a withdrawal, Bush now "owns" this war more than ever before.

Save the sailors

When, we wonder, is Congress going to step in and put a halt to efforts by green extremists to torpedo the testing or use of certain sonars by the U.S. Navy? In the latest in a series of sonar-related lawsuits, five groups have sued in federal court to block the Navy's use of certain sonars during military exercises off Hawaii, unless the service takes steps to mitigate any harm it may do to marine life. This could potentially disrupt a dozen anti-submarine warfare exercises planned in the next year. And a U.S. District judge in Los Angeles has demanded that the Navy turn over detailed data on its use of mid-frequency sonar over the past four years, in response to a suit from the Natural Resources Defense Council. The service has balked, claiming -- quite correctly -- that the release of such information could give an advantage to potential adversaries.

Americans care about the well-being of whales and marine mammals, as heroic efforts to lure a mother whale and her calf back to sea from the Sacramento River show. But the national security of the United States, and the safety of Navy personnel, is too important to be sacrificed due to some plausible but unproven theories about sonar's impact on these animals. Rather than leaving these decisions to fickle judges, Congress must step in and make these priorities clear, by amending the Marine Mammal Protection Act to grant the Navy any exemption it needs to continue using this vitally important technology.