Lynn C. Woolsey: “with this Congress blindly passing each and every one of the President's requests for more money for the war in Iraq…”

“with this Congress blindly passing each and every one of the President's requests for more money for the war in Iraq, which is soon to exceed $300 billion in total costs, the time is long overdue for a little common sense about how we spend the American people's money. Earlier this month I introduced new legislation, the Common Sense Budget Act of 2006, legislation that puts some sanity back into the Nation's fiscal policy. This bill already has the support of more than 35 cosponsors. It is beyond dispute that this administration, in tandem with the Republican Congress, has been, to put it mildly, less than fiscally responsible. And are they spending on the neediest Americans, those who need a hand up quite often just to make it from one day to the next? No, of course not. Instead, they fattened up the Pentagon and lavished wealthy special interests with subsidies and tax breaks. Last fall's budget debate actually exposed the staggering hypocrisy of it all because the very same congressional majority that is responsible for the fiscal decadence of the last several years suddenly started lecturing about thrift and responsibility. They were shocked, shocked, that spending had been going on around here. Federal money for Katrina reconstruction, they decided, had to be offset by budget cuts. Deficit spending is okay, apparently, when it comes to upper-bracket tax cuts, but not for poor people whose homes are under water. Well, guess what they chose to cut.…”