GOP Voted To Delay Funding For Troops -- As Part Of Health Care Debate

[mystieus]

Source: talkingpointsmemo

Everybody knows the health care debate has become more and more contentious, and dominated by a Republican parliamentary effort to delay the debate. But an under-appreciated aspect of this whole controversy -- exceedingly rare, if not unprecedented -- is the fact that it's even affected defense spending, with Senate Republicans having worked to hold that up, too!

Late on Thursday night, the Senate voted 63-33 to break a Republican filibuster of the defense appropriations bill. Only three Republicans voted against this delay of military spending: Kay Bailey Hutchison (TX), Olympia Snowe (ME) and Susan Collins (ME). The filibuster was part of a Republican effort to further delay the health care bill.

So think for a second about what happened here. The Senate GOP sought to hold up military spending -- and not because of an argument with the defense appropriations bill itself or something in it that might have been offensive to them, but in an attempt to block a domestic political debate. It was an especially interesting position for a party that repeatedly accused then-Senator Barack Obama, during the 2008 campaign, of trying to "defund the troops" when he voted against a military funding bill because it didn't include a timeline to withdraw from Iraq.

Is there even a precedent for this sort of thing? We put that question to Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and also asked whether it would be accurate to look at this and say that funding for the military was being held hostage in a domestic political dispute.

Read more: http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/gop-voted-to-delay-funding-for-troops----as-part-of-health-care-debate.php

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Stalling funding for troops... Even as some sort of metaphorical thing it makes no sense.

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Now what would they have said if the Democrats had held up funding?

Of course, we know what they would have said. That's because every time the Democrats tried to hold up funding for the war in Iraq, the Republicans simply cloaked it as "funding for the troops."

By now, we should realize that there is no such ting as a Republican principle.

[Jamastiene]

2. They should be held to task on that in 2010 and 2012.

That's what I was saying the other day. Every comment they made and every obstructionist tactic they used should be saved and used right back against them.

They constantly talk about how great they are for our military, but think of what a horrible thing that is to do to the troops who sacrifice so much.

We'll be home with our families over the holidays, many of the troops will not have that luxury.

What those Republicans have done is unconscionable and they should be exposed for the hideous, self serving cold hearted bastards they are.

[Triana]

3. How UNPATRIOTIC of them. Have I said yet today that...

..pretentious HYPOCRISY is the hallmark of Republicans?

There they go AGAIN.

[shotten99]

4. This should be a game changer if they are smart about it.