Is Davy Obey serious? (Part III)

Like an early December ice storm, Wisconsin Congressman Dave Obey is threatening to bring traffic to a halt. But this time it’s traffic in the form of an appropriations bill and funding for the Iraq war:

From the Wall Street Journal’s Washington Wire:

Obey halts spending bill:
Democrats are rethinking their year-end budget strategy amid anger over White House veto threats and an intra-party fight over suggestions Democrats are willing to accept war funding to gain leverage for domestic spending.

A $522 billion omnibus spending bill had been scheduled for a House vote Tuesday, but House Appropriations Committee Chairman David Obey (D., Wis.) abruptly announced he won’t file it tonight and recommended substantial revisions before a floor vote. Obey said he is prepared to cut billions from domestic programs and eliminating all home-state projects or spending “earmarks” favored by lawmakers in both parties.

“I’m not in the business of trying to pave the way for $70 billion or $90 billion for Iraq for $10 billion in table scraps,” Obey said. “We asked Bush to compromise. He has chosen to go the confrontation route.”

“I want no linkage what-so-ever between domestic [spending] and the war. I want the war to be dealt with totally on its own. We shouldn’t be trading off domestic priorities for the war.”

The bill, the product of weeks of backroom negotiations, had been an attempt by Democrats to find some middle ground with the administration by cutting $10.6 billion from spending bills that passed the House last summer. At the same time, new emergency funds were added, chiefly to meet State Department requests and a Republican-backed initiative to improve border security. Obey’s anger seemed directed not just at the administration but also his colleagues. The chairman is described as most upset with House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D., Md.), whose comments last week triggered new stories suggesting a year-end bargain trading war money for domestic funds. Obey is not alone. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) was described by one top Democrat as “livid” about Hoyer’s comments at a Washington Post editorial board breakfast.

What’s not clear in this dust-up is what’s happened to Obey's pledge of October 2 to tie more funding for the war in Iraq to a meaningful plan for withdrawal. His news release that day stated:

"As Chairman of the Appropriations Committee, I have no intention of reporting out a $200 billion supplemental that will give the President a blank check for an entire fiscal year and I have no intention of acquiescing in a policy that will result in draining the treasury so dry that it will result in the systematic disinvestment of America’s future.

"Obey added that he would be perfectly willing to consider the President’s supplemental request if that request were made in support of a change in policy that would do three things:

1) Establish as a goal the end of U.S. involvement in combat operations by January of 2009.
2) Ensure that troops would have adequate time at home to rest, retrain and re-equip between deployments.
3) Demonstrate a determination to engage in an intensive, broad scale diplomatic offensive involving other countries in the region.

That news release, at this hour at any rate, is still headlining his web site.

Has Obey now decided that he can issue a blank check to the Bush administration of $70 to $90 billion in Iraq war funding without the conditions he first required in October?

In any event, Obey appears to be—finally—acting as if the Congress might actually have some role to play in the appropriations process—event if it is more than a year since voters across the country gave Democrats the majority in the House and Senate.

As Bill Christofferson points out, Democrats “have the votes NOT to pass a spending bill” on Iraq--or anything else they choose for that matter.

Have the Democrats found a backbone?

We’ll probably know in the next 24-48 hours.