The Half-Trillion Dollar Solution To Getting out of Iraq

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http://www.alternet.org/story/48571/

The Half-Trillion Dollar Solution To Getting out of Iraq

By Bruce Ackerman and David Wu, The American Prospect. Posted February 28, 2007.

Want to end the Iraq war? Place a hard and fixed limit on the president's budget for war spending.

This article is reprinted from the American Prospect.



The real debate on Iraq begins with Congress's consideration of the military budget. The president has requested almost three quarters of a trillion dollars to fund the military through September 30, 2008. More than $150 billion is earmarked for Iraq.

We have already spent $350 billion there, so the president's proposal pushes our Iraqi costs close to the half trillion mark. At the same time, he is demanding a $100 billion cut in health care funding, falling most heavily on poor children, while he maintains his $200 billion annual tax cut, channeled mostly to millionaires.

It is Congress's job to restore fiscal balance first, by placing an overall limit on Iraq war expenditures. Congress should limit this president to spending half a trillion dollars on the Iraq war -- and no more.

While he may not like the limit (we don't either, but for the opposite reason), the president would have no choice but to sign this ceiling to get short-term funding for his war.

In taking this step, Congress wouldn't be initiating a grand constitutional battle over the war powers of the president. It would be exerting its constitutional power of the purse and playing its traditional role as a check on another branch of government, rebalancing runaway programs that threaten to overwhelm our fiscal health and national priorities.

Limiting all future expenditures in Iraq to $150 billion, tops, can in no way harm our troops in the field. It responsibly carries out the will of the American people: that the president, with professional military advice, should be unwinding this war and planning a prudent departure for friendlier nearby countries or home.

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