End War Funding

Supplemental Appropriations Act Of 2009

It appears to be that time again. Time to waste a couple hundred billion more dollars on two wars that have accomplished little. Again, a real comprehensive review of the strategy, expectations, cost, and truthful analysis of what has or hasn't been achieved, is unlikely. In the 2006 mid term elections the Democrats were elected to majorities in both the House and Senate. The most important issue by far was the Iraq war. Americans spoke out at the polls with a clear mandate to the Democrats to bring the disaster in Iraq to a close. That was 31months ago. Since then, most Democrats, along with nearly all Republicans, have continued to fund both wars in Afghanistan and Iraq numerous times. To the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars each time.

Since the election of 2006, the Democrats have shown a real lack of leadership in stopping further funding of these wars. They have let their constituents down. They've demonstrated a rubber spine on standing up to unpopular Bush policies. The continued war funding, FISA compromise, failure to launch investigations... are just a few examples of their caving in. We heard the excuses "we don't have the votes", we don't control the White House.... A Democrat has now been elected to the White House. The Democrats now have a huge majority in the House, and a 60-40 filibuster proof majority in the Senate. (Whenever Sen Franken finally gets to Washington anyhow) There is no longer any excuse to ignore the voters mandate. If you want to be in power, then you must lead. There are way too few real leaders in Washington these days with the courage to actually lead. The current cycle of never ending campaigning and elections have produced many poll watching followers, but few real leaders.

Today we are trying to lift our economy from the worst financial recession since the Great Depression. Unprecedented amounts of taxpayer dollars (trillions) have been given to greedy, corrupt, already ultra rich Wall Street bankers to bail them out of the gigantic financial mess they themselves created with their own insatiable greed and mismanagement. At the same time unemployment figures are nearing double digits nationwide. Almost 50 million Americans continue to lack health coverage. After eight years conducting two endless wars our nations roads, bridges, electric grid, and infrastructure in general, have been ignored and are now crumbling.

America is in serious decline. We need the few real leaders in Washington to question the rationale of wasting hundreds of billions more dollars on these endless, unproductive wars. They have done more harm than good concerning making us safer. It's time for a return to fiscal sanity. It's time to end the downward spiral in America. It's time to end these two wars. It's time for Healthcare Not Warfare. It's time for real change.

Jeff Morris-Saugerties, N.Y.- DeJaVu57