On the recordNovember 14, 2012
Since the House last convened in late September, about 30 more Americans have given their lives in the war in Afghanistan. The total number of fatalities has now passed 2,000. And as of October 7, we've been at war in Afghanistan for a staggering 11 years. There are more than 2,000 families that will have an empty chair this Thanksgiving, more than 2,000 families with a void that can't possibly be filled--husbands and wives who will have to go on without their life partner, children missing a parent, parents who are suffering the terrible grief of losing a child. The human cost has become too steep for our Nation to bear. We can't ask our troops and their families to endure any more sacrifice for a military occupation--now more than a decade old--which has not accomplished its goals and is undermining our national security as well. And of course, the fiscal burden is one that rests on the shoulders of every single taxpaying American. The Afghanistan pricetag would be high even for a successful, well-executed policy that was actually making America stronger. But to waste the people's money to the tune of $10 billion a month on this failure is a national scandal. To every one of my colleagues who has spoken on this floor about excessive government spending, it's time to look at the cost of foreign wars before we start cutting domestic programs that our very own people need to survive. It's not just progressives like me who believe we need a change in policy, Mr.…
