Democrats, Led By Kent Conrad, Want To Put Iraq Funding Into The Budget

I think this demonstrates how unserious Democrats are about a) the mission in Iraq and b) giving our troops what they need to complete that mission.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 13 — Frustrated by the Bush administration’s piecemeal financing of the Iraq war, Democrats are planning to assert more control over the billions of dollars a month being spent on the conflict when they take charge of Congress in January.
In interviews, the incoming Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate Budget Committees said they would demand a better accounting of the war’s cost and move toward integrating the spending into the regular federal budget, a signal of their intention to use the Congressional power of the purse more assertively to influence the White House’s management of the war.
The lawmakers, Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Representative John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, said the administration’s approach of paying for extended military operations and related activities through a series of emergency requests had inhibited Congressional scrutiny of the spending and obscured the true price of the war.
“They have been playing hide-the-ball,” Mr. Conrad said, “and that does not serve the Congress well nor the country well, and we are not going to continue that practice.”

There has been nothing hidden about the cost of the war in Iraq. The bills that have provided funding for the war have passed through Congress with no small amount of attention and scrutiny from this nation’s politicians and journalists. For Conrad to suggest that this isn’t so is just plain dishonest.
The reason funding for the war in Iraq isn’t part of the budgeting process is because the situation in Iraq is very fluid and the budget process is slow and rife with pitfalls and partisan politics. Our troops fighting in Iraq deserve to have the funding and resources their mission demands sent to them in a timely manner, free of delays caused by other appropriations and grandstanding politicians. That, rather than any attempt to hide the amount of money we’re spending in Iraq as Senator Conrad suggests, is why the war is being funded through emergency appropriations rather than the normal budget process.
I think most reasonable people who aren’t blinded by partisan politics can agree that this reasoning is sound.
So why is Kent Conrad trying to include funding for the war in Iraq in the budget process? I think it’s an oblique way for Democrats to oppose the war. The Dems have been promising to stop the war in Iraq by strangling off its funding for some time now, but coming right out and cutting the legs out from under our troops while they’re still on the battlefield would be political suicide for the Democrats. So rather than declaring their intentions, the Democrats want to strangle off funding for the war in Iraq by changing the way it is funded.
Subjecting war funding to the budgeting process gives Democrats cover for denying funding to our troops by claiming that they’re just opposing other elements of the President’s budget. Thus they can cut off funding for our troops even as they’re still on the battlefield while still claiming that they support them and avoiding accusations about cold hearted partisanship.
Pretty neat trick, eh? Too bad it’s disgustingly dishonest.
(via the ND Democrats)