White House warns of Xmas military furlough notice, blames Dems

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2007/11/white_house_warns_of_xmas_mili.html

White House warns of Xmas military furlough notice

by Mark Silva

Merry Christmas from Washington: With Congress balking at continued war funding, the White House says the Defense Department will issue furlough notices to about 100,000 civilian workers at military bases in mid-December.

The threat of notices is the White House’s way of reminding Congress that it must authorize continued funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The House has voted to tie $50 billion in continued funding to a timeline for troop withdrawals, but that measure has been shelved in the Senate. The White House is calling on Congress to approve a spending bill before year’s end. If funding isn’t provided, the Defense Department says, the stall will have a “profoundly’’ burdensome impact on its operations.

“Before you furlough anyone, you have to provide notice,’’ White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said this morning. “If Congress provides the full funding, then the Department of Defense will not have to take the step’’ of furlough notices. They will have to be issued in mid-December, she said.

Perino also acknowledges that this was a warning shot across the bow of Congress – “that’s exactly what that was.’’

“It is not us who is making any civilians suffer,’’ she said. “We are calling on Congress.’’

too bad I hope the Congress stands its ground.

that's playing their blood and treasure games again with our Soldiers' lives.

Tell them to go fuck themselves and let the humans figure it out.

Hit people in their pocketbooks and blame it on the Dems.

Any attempt to withhold funding will need to address the inevitable underhanded stuff like this.

with the MSM cooperating and telling the public, it is the democrats fault, and NOT BUSH because he vetoed previous bills, and NOT THE REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS because they won't let the bill come to vote. Oh no it is the democrats because they wont' send bush a bill HE WANTS.

The republicans don't want a bill to come forward with words that say we are closing down the war. That would be embarrassing to bush, so the republicans block the bill and the democrats get blamed.

UNTIL THIS CONGRESS GETS OFF IT'S ASS AND STARTS FIGHTING BACK, by first reigning in the press so they get a fair shake, nothing the democrats do will get out to the public. ONLY WHAT THE REPUBLICANS WANT AND THAT WOULD BE NEGATIVE.

they always do - i pray they show some backbone and hold firm -

but they have let me down so many times in the past

this is a completely different situation of course, but I too hope Congress doesn't back down. Bush needs to be brought to heel right now.

unlikely, but let's hope...

when this debacle started, we were told that the war would cost $60 billion "tops", and that iraqi oil revenue would foot the entire cost.

that obviously hasn't happened.

the bill for the war is now expected to top $2trillion when all is said and done...

but- no new taxes or repeal of tax cuts for the wealthy has occurred to make up the difference between what it was "supposed to cost" and what it DOES cost.

showing at least an iota of fiscal responsibility by trying to actually fund the criminal war would probably give the dollar a little help as well.

covering their employees salaries while 'running two wars' on $431 billion a year, I have no sympathy. They could elect to cut research and development of their futuristic weapons, close some US bases entirely, or curtail their own travel budgets. 'Furloughing' civilian employees is just another wrong choice the warmongers will make.