After two months
of delay, Congress may soon send President George W. Bush an
emergency spending bill that would supply needed funds to U.S.
soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the bills already passed by
the House and Senate-which have yet to be reconciled into final
form-are unacceptable. The bills would tie the President's hands in
conducting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a blatantly
unconstitutional usurpation of the President's constitutional
authority as commander in chief. At the same time, Congress's
legislation is weighted down with billions of dollars in
pork-barrel spending. Congress owes the American people and U.S.
troops a clean emergency spending bill that does not violate the
Constitution or make funding for body armor contingent on money for
citrus growers. If Congress's legislation falls short, the
President must veto it.
Irresponsible and
Unconstitutional
Sixty-six days
ago, on February 5, 2007, President Bush requested a supplemental
spending bill to provide urgently needed funds for the troops on
the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq. In response, the House and
Senate passed bills, but each chamber included in its legislation
an unconstitutional requirement for the withdrawal of U.S. combat
forces from Iraq over the next year. Congress then left for the
Easter holiday without sending a final bill to the President.
The result of
Congress's passing unconstitutional legislation and then leaving
town is a harmful delay in getting vital funds to the troops. On
March 29, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Peter Pace told the House
Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense that if the supplemental
funds were not available by mid-April, National Guard and Reserve
units would have to curtail some training activities.
Mid-April has
arrived, and still no funding is imminent.
The congressional
leadership is using the supplemental bill as a vehicle to debate
the war strategy and putting the troops on the front line at risk
in the process. If Congress does not wish to provide adequate
funding for the war effort, that is its prerogative, but Congress
has other tools it can use to influence the outcome in the Afghani
and Iraqi theaters of the larger war the U.S. is fighting, such as
confirmation power over military commanders, setting of military
reorganization policy and overall troop levels, and decisions
regarding procurement of weapons systems and supplies. The one
thing that Congress may not do is fund military units and
then attempt to control where, when, and how they engage in combat.
Under the Constitution, the President is the commander in chief,
and Congress cannot usurp his constitutional authority over troop
operations through funding bills, no matter whether it intends
micro- or macro-management of the war.
Congress should
act now to send the President a clean bill, free of
unconstitutional provisions, and conduct its debate about the wars
separately in an appropriate forum. If Congress sends him a bill
which contains unconstitutional limits on the President's authority
as commander in chief-for example, one that specifies when and in
which theaters of war he should deploy or withdraw troops-the
President must veto it to fulfill his oath to support and defend
the Constitution.
Pork Signals
Abandoning Pretenses of Fiscal Discipline
Loading its
troop-funding supplemental with unrelated pork is the first sign
that the new Congress does not intend to take its promise of fiscal
discipline seriously. In mid-February, Congress passed a spending
bill that capped 2007 discretionary non-emergency spending, but
emergency spending is not counted against this cap. By packing its
emergency supplemental legislation with non-emergency pork-such as
$100 million for citrus growers in the House's bill-Congress
stealthily breaks its own rules, making a mockery of its pledge of
fiscal responsibility.
This is a moral
tragedy. Rather than send the President a clean supplemental bill
to ensure that the troops have adequate funding to fulfill their
mission, Congress has passed a $20 billion ransom note. Unless it
receives $20 million for cricket eradication and $95 million for
dairy farmers, among other questionable expenditures, the Senate
will not direct funds to pay for military training. The House,
meanwhile, is demanding $74 million for peanut storage, $25 million
for spinach growers, and $6.4 million for additional congressional
salaries and expenses before it will agree to fund body armor. Congress
should not play political games when soldiers' lives are at stake,
and the fact that this supplemental turns U.S. troops into
collateral for pork is morally offensive.
Members of the
House and Senate leadership should know that their troop-funding
strategy is self-defeating. Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY)
admitted on Meet the Press that the pork in the bill was
being used to buy Representatives' votes. But if Members of
Congress think that pork will bring them votes in the next
election, they have clearly lost touch with their constituents. A
recent poll by Public Opinion Strategies revealed that 56 percent
of Americans support fully funding the troops and 64 percent oppose
attaching non-defense spending to defense bills. Indeed, most
Americans are patriots who are grateful to U.S. soldiers for
putting their lives on the line. They prefer to send thanks and the
necessary resources in exchange for the protection troops provide,
and they do not demand peanuts or spinach in return. Citizens know
that emergency war funding ought to fund troops, not pork. Congress
should listen and strip all the pork and unrelated policy
provisions from its emergency spending legislation. If Congress
refuses, the President should veto the bill.
Conclusion
If Congress is
serious about its commitment to U.S. troops and serious about its
commitment to fiscal responsibility, it must act quickly to send
the President a war funding bill that does not violate the
Constitution or include unrelated spending items. The President is
right to threaten a veto of Congress's legislation. Anything that
falls short of the standards of constitutionality and
responsibility must face a presidential veto.
Edwin J. Feulner, Ph.D.,
is President of The Heritage Foundation.