The Pentagon’s $200 billion funding request to pay for the Iran war has not yet been made official, but Democratic opposition to the huge demand is quickly lining up.
Republicans are the same party that argued the country couldn’t afford to spend $60 billion over two years to ensure millions of people don’t face rising health insurance premiums and lose access to health care, but they now want to spend $200 billion to pay for an unpopular war in the Middle East that’s costing taxpayers billions of dollars a day.
Like the rest of the American people, Democrats were not consulted in advance or asked for their support in this war.
Given that people are struggling to pay for food, utilities, car gas, and health insurance, it makes sense that Democrats don’t want to just throw $200 billion at the Pentagon for Trump’s war of choice.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) was on CNN’s State Of The Union where Dana Bash asked if Jeffries will encourage Democrats to vote no: “Is that something that, if it comes up before the House of Representatives, you will whip it, meaning you will urge your fellow Democrats to vote no on any funding, or will you allow them to vote their conscience?
The House Minority Leader responded:
Well, we’ll have that leadership conversation when we actually have a piece of legislation before us.
But I can tell you that right now there is strong opposition to the idea that this reckless war of choice, which is now costing the American people more than $30 billion, should continue. We need to come up with a resolution on war powers, which we intend to do in the short term, so that we can put an end to this situation.
Jeffries’ answer was very important because Senate Republicans have already made it clear that they do not want to be solely responsible for financing Trump’s war.
Rep. Jeffries also made an important argument about what America should spend its money on instead of war.
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