Tax cuts in the middle of two wars are OK, but tax hikes to pay the freight of those wars would be irresponsible. That’s the message coming from Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), head of the Republican Study Committee, who told CNN this morning that a war surtax More…
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. More…
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
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
Eight years after leaving the Missouri House of Representatives, Vicky Hartzler found herself praying for America. Her congressman, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, had supported most of President Barack Obama’s agenda, including cap-and-trade legislation. Hartzler and her husband, who sell farm equipment, asked More…
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 More…
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 More…
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 More…
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
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