Educate yourselves on the facts regarding JK's vote on the 87B...
It is HYPOCRITICAL for the Bush Administration to call this a vote against the troops when they threatened to VETO it themselves if the final version included a Senate approved provision to make $10 Billion of these funds into a loan to be paid back to the U.S. taxpayers. If there was time for the Administration to veto this bill and still get money to the troops, they cannot turn around and claim that Kerry’s vote would have cut off funding for the troops – they cannot have it both ways. The simple reality is that the troops were always going to get their funding – the only real question was whether the President was going to change his failed Iraq policy.
“The White House threatened Tuesday to veto its own spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan if Congress made reconstruction aid a loan, taking its most forceful stand on the issue even as more lawmakers supported a reimbursement by Iraq. After declining to threaten a veto last week before the Senate voted to lend up to $10 billion to Iraq, the White House surprised many people on Capitol Hill with its warning…Last week, without using the word "veto," Mr. Bush called on a series of wavering lawmakers and made it clear that he would not appreciate a vote for a loan. The statement on Tuesday, after eight Republican senators defied him last week and helped form a majority in favor of a $10 billion loan, was the strongest threat to date. "If this provision is not removed, the president's senior advisers would recommend that he veto the bill," Joshua B. Bolten, the White House budget director, wrote in a letter to Congressional leaders.”
[Firestone, New York Times, 10/22/03]
more later...
