After Years of War, House Holds Votes to Check Military Action

Monday, May 30, 2011 by The Hill

by Russell Berman 

 

An increasingly war-weary House will vote this week on legislation that would halt the U.S. military intervention in Libya. The vote comes just days after lawmakers nearly approved a measure to expedite the American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The office of Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Friday the House would take up a resolution introduced by anti-war Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) that directs the president to remove U.S. armed forces from Libya. The liberal Democrat is acting under authority of the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which enables legislators to force a vote on troop withdrawal measures under certain conditions.

Kucinich has used the mechanism to force votes on withdrawing forces from Iraq and Afghanistan, most recently in March, but this will be the first such vote on the two-month-old Libya mission.

The measure is not expected to pass, but a significant number of votes in favor could send a sobering message to the White House, which has struggled to win congressional support for the military intervention in Libya. Both Republican and Democratic leaders criticized Obama for a lack of consultation with Congress in the run-up to the military deployment, and the House has ignored his request for a resolution supporting the mission.

Obama has also come under criticism for not providing enough clarity on the goals of the bombing campaign – whether it is merely to protect Libyan civilians from a crackdown by Moammar Ghadafi or whether it is to drive Ghadafi from power.

The House last week overwhelmingly voted to add amendments to a Defense authorization bill to bar the president from deploying ground troops to Libya and stating explicitly that Congress was not, as part of the legislation, authorizing the military mission.

Kucinich seized on those votes to declare increased momentum for ending the U.S. involvement. “Congress is not satisfied with the blank check that this administration has written for itself to conduct the Libyan war,” Kucinich said. “Congress has made it clear that the Libyan war has not been authorized as required by the Constitution and the War Powers Act.”

Aides said Democrats felt comfortable voting to prohibit ground troops in Libya because Obama has already deemed it U.S. policy.

An aide to Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Democratic leaders would not whip their members on the Kucinich resolution.

In a separate vote, the House came surprisingly close to approving an expedited withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. The bipartisan measure, authored by Reps. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) and Justin Amash (R-Mich.), failed 215-204 after drawing 26 Republican votes and all but eight Democrats.

During the debate over that resolution, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that she told Afghan President Hamid Karzai that Americans wanted to end the war. “Each time I go there, I say, ‘The American people are growing tired of war,’ ” Pelosi said on the floor.

‘Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit,’ Sen. Sanders (I-VT)

Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit
By Sahil Kapur
Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

Read part one of this interview, available here

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) slammed the "hypocrisy" of deficit hawks seeking to cut Social Security, arguing in a recent interview with Raw Story that the program is fully solvent for several decades and that diminishing its scope would drastically damage Democratic prospects.

"Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit. That’s a totally bogus issue," Sanders said. "To talk about Social Security within the context of deficit reduction is total nonsense, because it has not contributed one nickel to the deficit."

While Social Security payouts did exceed revenues for the first time last year, the Social Security Trust Fund presently enjoys a surplus of $2.6 trillion and is expected to remain solvent in its current form until 2037, according to its trustees report.

But critics nevertheless argue that because money is so tight, it may be necessary to cut future benefits in order to pay down America's enormous national debt. One method gaining traction in the beltway is incrementally increasing the retirement age according to average life span, which is supported by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Democratic leaders such as Reps. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and Jim Clyburn (D-SC).

Conservatives have long targeted Social Security, viewing it as an emblem of the welfare state their ideology staunchly opposes. The Bush administration tried to privatize the program in 2005, failing due to opposition from Democrats.

Liberals have harbored fears that President Obama may support cuts to Social Security, which Sanders said contradicts the president's campaign pledge to sustain and strengthen the program. He also warned that reversing this promise would cause a fatal blow to the future of the progressive movement and Democratic Party.

"To have campaigned on that basis, and now to cave into Republican demands, would be a real insult to people to voted for you," Sanders said.

"This would be a horrendous public policy decision, it would be a horrendous political decision," he added. "The idea that a Democratic president would move us in that direction would be a bitter, bitter disappointment to millions of Americans of all political stripes, but especially to progressives, to trade unionists, and to senior citizens."

The independent from Vermont slammed the "total hypocrisy" of Democrats and Republicans who support cutting Social Security to reduce the deficit but also backed an extension of tax cuts for the wealthy last month.

"Cutting Social Security is not relevant to the deficit and national debt problem," Sanders said.