david obey

Continuing with the question of how Congress will meet the costs of escalation in Afghanistan, Matthew Yglesias flags this Politico piece reporting an initiative by House Democrats to place a one-percent surtax on “middle-class households earning between $30,000 and $150,000,” in addition to higher taxes on wealthier households. It has support not only from Rep. [...]

Speaking of the unclear cost of escalating the Afghanistan war, I see via David Dayen and Tim Fernholz that Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, wants to treat war spending like domestic spending:

Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.), the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, warned that if President Barack Obama decides [...]

From Beijing, President Obama says that his imminent announcement of refined Afghanistan strategy will contain some very important details:
“I am very confident that when I announce the decision, the American people will have a lot of clarity about what we’re doing, how we’re going to succeed, how much this thing is going to cost,” Mr. [...]

The candidates share a rationale: if any Democrats deserve to lose next year, it will be the powerful committee chairmen who are shepherding the party’s agenda through Congress.

Sean Duffy, the leading Republican candidate challenging Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), will report a fundraising total of $140,000, with $120,000 cash on hand, for the third quarter of 2009. I talked with the candidate today, keying off NRCC Chairman and Rep. Pete Sessions’s (R-Texas) prediction that Obey — who is seeking a 21st term in [...]

Both Greg Grant and Josh Rogin report that Sen. Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, has endorsed Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan and troop requests. Well, sort of.

It’s not quite a call to end the Afghanistan war, but Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.), chairman of the crucial House Appropriations Committee and a participant in Tuesday’s congressional meeting with President Obama, has emailed out a very long statement saying that waging a counterinsurgency in Afghanistan is likely to be “futile.” Even Sen. Carl Levin’s [...]

Last week I urged people to watch Sens. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Reps. David Obey (D-Wis.) and Jack Murtha (D-Pa) for barometric measurements of deflated Democratic congressional support for the Afghanistan war. Levin, of course, came out on Friday for deferring a second troop increase this year. Now Murtha is opposing [...]

Congress is back, and Karen DeYoung has a good section in her Washington Post story on the administration’s Afghanistan choices about what that means:
The pending 2010 budget legislation for the first time requests more money for Afghanistan-Pakistan operations than for Operation Iraqi Freedom — $68 billion compared with $61 billion. Administration officials said they expected [...]

Just as it did with the Senate’s defense authorization bill, the White House released a statement warning the House Appropriations Committee against placing any money for the F-22 fighter jet — which the Senate killed — into its companion legislation:
The Administration strongly objects to $369 million in unrequested advanced procurement funding provided for 12 F-22 [...]