how come the dems have not shut off funding for the war?

Question

pelosi promised to get us out of iraq and has done nothing.
is she not a good leader?
what is her/their problem?
the dems in 73 cut off funding for the vietnam war and brought it to a end.

seems the dems will leave the troops in until 2013 now. so what the difference then with what the Prez wants and this?

Answer 1

No backbone. Afraid to make a mistake (in the polls) to hell with the idea of having a stand based on principles! Gawd, did I say having a stand??? What is wrong with me?

Answer 2

in 1973, Democrats in Congress had a much larger majority than they do now, and the will to override a VETO.

Besides, Dems in Congress truly support the troops, as opposed to just talking about it the way Reps do, and shutting off the funding would put our soldiers lives in danger needlessly. There is no way a Democrat would do that, that's what we have chickenhawk Republicans for. Develop a coherent exit strategy for the troops, then the money goes away and the troops come home.

Democrats do not enjoy such a majority in Congress. Not this year at least. We gave the Republicans 6 years to fix things they promised to fix, they failed to do ANYTHING except molest children and take bribes from Halliburton. Give Dems a clear majority and put a Dem in the White House and retire about 5 of the Con Justices on the Supreme Court and not only will the troops come home, there will once again be money for AMERICANS instead of IRAQIS.

Answer 3

Well--you have your history a bit scrambled. In the late 60s Congress did restrict funding--but they were dealing with administrations--Johnson and Nixon--who were willing to work with them--if reluctantly.

Now, we have a President who has made it clear he will simply leave our troops exposed if funds are cut off. In effect, he is holding them hostage to coerce Congress into continuing funding. And--since the Republicans in Congress who privately oppose the war are still not willing to stand up to Bush and the neoconservatives, Congress can't override a veto of a bill with a mandatory timetable.

So--the Dems can't force a withdrawal. And--as events have made clear--Bush will not deal in good faith. So what is Pelosi--and the rest of Congress--supposed to do? Leave oru troops in a war zone without proper support? They arennot going to do that; instead, they're doing al they can do to erode Bush's remaining support and what little is left of the right-wing's credibility.

It's a lousy way to handle this--but unless the Democrats are willing to abondon our troops--which they are not--its all that can be done at this point.

Answer 4

If they cut off funding, Bush and the Republicans would paint them as responsible for the war..Nobody wants to take over this war that has been horribly mismanaged. Dems know that they have the advantage going into the 2008 elections because of the war and don't want to risk it by doing something drastic...is it wrong? maybe, but the Dems did not get us into this mess.

Answer 5

The dems can't shut off funding for the war because it would hurt our troops and if this happens they don't have a prayer in hell to become the number party with Hillary sitting in the White House.

Answer 6

Bush has vetoed every bill the democrats have proposed.

Health care.
Ending the war.
They did show some strength when they refused to approve the funding of the war unless it was to get troops out of Iraq. When Bush threatened to veto the health care and pay raise for soldiers the democrats backed down and allowed him more blood money for his heavily invest oil stocks.

I sure wish he were invested in corn Wisconsin and other corn crop states would be richer than Iraq. With Ethenol.

Answer 7

This was an excellent campaign strategy - but once in the driver's seat, it became apparent that defunding this war is a really bad idea. The United States and her true allies are the Islamic militants last hurdle - we can confront them or we can accept their demands and revert back to policies of inaction and no effective response to their terror.
Do not think for a moment that if the terrorists are successful they will abandon their tactics of indiscriminate terror and murder of innocent men, women and children. People do not abandon methods that are successful. This fanatical ideology must be defeated - the terrorists cannot continue their tactics with impunity.

Answer 8

Evil must be fought some where and maybe , just maybe it's better to fight it there. While democrats remain opposed to the invasion of Iraq that is in the past and now we need to face the reality that it is better to fight terrorists there than here.

Answer 9

Simple. It is because bush used his VETO power to stop the Democrats, then they do not have enough votes (2/3 of Congress) to overrule him. If they can get enough Republican Congresspeople to vote with the Democrats, this would have already been stopped.

Answer 10

Pelosi has allowed her constituency to have a free speech leather fetish street carnival this week, the Folsom Street Fair. So I guess she has been busy.