McHugh Watch

Today our congressman voted against taking care of our wounded soldiers, against providing healthcare for children, against funding education, and against deficit reduction and tax relief for the middle class – clean sweep.

Also today, DangerDemocrat found a story from UPI quoting our congressman’s concern about the military healthcare system for our soldiers:

“There is no doubt that these are most difficult times for the military health system. One of the most severe challenges rests in the fact that, for the second year in a row, the budget for the Defense Health Program has been significantly reduced with the hope of congressional support for changes to the benefit in the form of increased fees for TRICARE,” Rep John M. McHugh,R-N.Y., the ranking Republican on the Military Personnel Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives said in a statement at the subcommittee’s hearing on the state of the U.S. military health care system.

“The budget assumes reductions to funding for military treatment facilities for the third year in a row with the expectation that these facilities must become more efficient. The fiscal year 2008 budget reduction is $2.1 billion,” McHugh said..

“It is undeniable that the care provided to our troops, their families and to our retired beneficiaries is vital to the success of our military now and in the future,” he said.

He was commenting upon the President’s budget sent to Capital Hill a few weeks ago. His words sound pretty good. He’s sounds somewhat “concerned” – a favorite word of his.

What happened today? The House passed the 2008 Budget Resolution.

After receiving the President’s budget, both the Senate and the House (usually by early April) draw up a spending plan for the year: the Congressional Budget Resolution. It provides a fiscal roadmap for the various congressional committees for later appropriations – in a future post I’ll explain the appropriations process. The Resolution balances the budget by 2012 with a surplus projected for that year.

Here are the major highlights:

• Most importantly it increases and assures funding for wounded veterans. The resolution provides $43.1 billion for veterans in 2008, representing a 98% of the level requested in The Independent Budget, a plan developed by four leading veterans groups. It is $3.5 Billion more than Bush requested. It also rejects Bush’s proposal to raise TRICARE co-payments and removing more than 100,000 veterans form the VA healthcare system. From the Resolution itself:

  SEC. 501. SENSE OF THE HOUSE ON SERVICEMEMBERS’ AND VETERANS’ HEALTH CARE AND OTHER PRIORITIES.It is the sense of the House that–
  (1) the House supports excellent health care for current and former members of the United States Armed Services, who have served well and honorably and have made significant sacrifices for this Nation;
  (2) this resolution provides $43,055,000,000 in discretionary budget authority for 2008 for Function 700 (Veterans Benefits and Services), including veterans’ health care, which is $6,598,000,000 more than the 2007 level, $5,404,000,000 more than the Congressional Budget Office’s baseline level for 2008, and $3,506,000,000 more than the President’s budget for 2008;
  (3) this resolution provides funding to implement, in part, recommendations of the bi-partisan `Walter Reed Commission’ (the President’s Commission on Care for America’s Returning Wounded Warriors) and other United States Government investigations into military and veterans health care facilities and services;
  (4) this resolution assumes the rejection of the enrollment fees and co-payment increases in the President’s budget;
  (5) this resolution provides additional funding above the President’s inadequate budget levels for the Department of Veterans Affairs to research and treat veterans’ mental health, post-traumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain and spinal cord injuries; and
  (6) this resolution provides additional funding above the President’s inadequate budget levels for the Department of Veterans Affairs to improve the speed and accuracy of its processing of disability compensation claims, including funding to hire additional personnel above the President’s requested level.

• Increases children’s access to health care by increased funding of the State Children’s Health Insurance project (SCHIP program).
• Invests in Education by restoring Pell grants, increased funding of the No Child Left Behind Act along with increased funding of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
• Protects middle-class taxpayers by providing Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) relief for 2007 and 2008 – one year more than the President – preventing millions of middle-class taxpayers from being subjected to the AMT. It includes no tax increase. Under PAYGO (pay as you go) it allows for new tax relief and the extension of expiring tax provisions, IF the cost of these measures is offset. By requiring offsets, the resolution protects the American taxpayer from having to pay the higher interest costs on the debt that would accumulate when tax cuts are not paid for. The resolution also calls for strong new measures to close the tax gap, shut down tax scams, and address offshore tax havens. And it sets the stage for tax simplification and reform.

Guess who voted against it. You’re right, our very “concerned” congressman. Later today, NCPR is going to showcase his concern. Any bets on them asking him about his vote today. Highly doubtful. He mouths concern and then turns his back on our soldiers.

Says all the right things: does nothing. When are we going to wake up?

For those of us who lived through the Vietnam War and were subject to the drivel that dripped from the mouths of our national leaders, we have very little patience for the spin, the lies and the deceit that we are being fed again today. It was hard for us then and hard for us now to see so clearly the march of the inevitable leading to a national nightmare. Much like Cassandra, who bore the curse of being able to see the future but having no one believe her, most of the American people see the continued carnage in Iraq as unstoppable until we leave.

Just after the Gulf of Tonkin resolution was rushed through the Congress, only two Senators voted against it: Wayne Morse of Oregon and Ernest Gruening of Alaska. Just after the vote in August of 1964 Morse had this to say:

“But one thing I do know – and that is we’re going to be bogged down in southeast Asia for years to come if we follow this course of action, and we’re going to kill thousands of American boys until finally, let me say, the American people are going to say what the French people finally said – they’ve had enough.”

Listen here:

Prophetic – and for being so courageous, he lost his Senate seat to Bob Packwood in 1968.

William Fulbright, engineered the Gulf of Tonkin resolution through the Senate, only to regret it. Looking back on those frantic days, when the Congress and the American people were bamboozled, and with the focus of the retrospectroscope with the uncovering of the White House tapes that so clearly showed President Lyndon Johnson and his defense secretary, Robert McNamara, orchestrating, almost minute to minute, the Gulf of Tonkin incident he ruefully looked back:

“The events as they related them of August 4, 1964 were not true. In fact there was no attack at all – so it was they represented to us that we had been attacked which was all a phony and was false and the rationale for the resolution was if we’ll pass this quickly and unanimously, if possible, it will be a warning to the North Vietnamese and they will no longer infiltrate - they’ll quit - it’ll scare ‘em all - we’ll bloody their nose and they’ll stop and I suppose in Texas politics if you do that these people stop. It just didn’t work that way in Vietnam.”
Listen here:

It sounds all so familiar.

I wonder what Mr. McHugh will say years from now. How many more thousands do we need to sacrifice. Blood begets blood. Walter Cronkite puts it something like this: What is our duty to the dead – to sacrifice more in a cause where military victory is not only unattainable but inappropriate? That duty sustains wars, and that investment in blood makes retreat look dishonorable. Continuation is the hardest course to resist.

Particularly for those who view it from the distant perspective of the comfortable seats on Capital Hill; those who have never been to war and who see it from sterile safety of their congressional office cocoons or those who dress up and play soldier to vicariously experience war. In August 2004 and heard Mr. McHugh tell the Central Labor Council how his plane got shot at as they were descending into Baghdad.

I wasn’t impressed.

We must stop now before we have to build yet another black wall on the Washington mall with 57,000 names on it.

To hear more of Walter Cronkite and the beginning of the Vietnam calamity listen here from NPR:

Responding to criticism to his vote on Friday against the supplemental appropriations bill Mr. McHugh said,

“It took away from local commanders on the field, who are in the heat of battle, really the flexibility to make the decisions that they need to make. It’s micro managing from Washington the kind of debacle we got ourselves into in Vietnam”

The bill specifically funds an orderly and safe withdrawal from Iraq after March 1, 2008:

(d) … the Secretary of Defense shall commence the redeployment of the Armed Forces from Iraq not later than March 1, 2008, and complete such redeployment within 180 days.

(e) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, funds appropriated or otherwise made available in this or any other Act are immediately available for obligation and expenditure to plan and execute a safe and orderly redeployment of the Armed Forces from Iraq, as specified in subsections (c) and (d).

It says nothing about the “heat of battle” or “micromanaging” commanders in the field. It directs the Secretary of Defense to withdraw the troops. Directions to and funding of the activities of the Secretary of Defense do not constitute “micromanaging” but rather funding and broad policy direction.

In fact the Act explicitly states:

It is the sense of Congress that, because the commanders of the United States Armed Forces in Iraq have the training, experience, and first-hand knowledge of the situation on the ground–

(1) the commanders should be allowed to conduct the war and manage the movements of the troops; and

(2) Congress should remain focused on executing its oversight role.

What could be more clear. Continue Reading »

In his own words:

And we can, we must have, a different approach, one that especially places responsibility for success where it rightfully lies, and I have heard my colleagues tonight speak about that, with the Iraqi people. I propose an amendment to the supplemental appropriations bill that will just do that, require the Iraqis to step forward, to stand up, to stop the talking, and to begin to act.
– John McHugh, February 13, 2007 before the House during H. Con. Res 63 debate.

Today’s vote on the supplemental appropriations bill was one of the most disturbing votes that our congressman has cast in his tenure as our representative. It is not a surprise that he once again voted to continue this war and support the President – he’s consistent – but rather he voted against what he publicly told us he stood for on the floor of the house. What is most disturbing is that he voted against the tenets of the very bill, HR 775, that he introduced on January 31, 2007 and called the Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense and for the Reconstruction of Iraq.

The very actions that he called for in his bill were each addressed in today’s supplemental appropriation. See here for a line by line comparison of his bill HR 775 and today’s bill. You will find that every single item of concern to Mr. McHugh was addressed in today’s bill – and still he votes against it. Continue Reading »

Sadly, but not unsurprisingly, Mr. McHugh voted against the supplemental appropriations bill that would have supported our troops by giving them the money and equipment they need to wrap up this war and then start a six month withdrawal by March of next year.   To add insult to injury, he voted against the Milk Income Loss Contract Program funding leaving our farmers out in the cold.
I report this now, more comment later.  This is a profound vote that can not go unnoticed.

Today is a big day for Mr. McHugh. He gets to vote for our farmers or vote for Bush and his war. Either he votes to bring the troops home and for the Milk Income Loss Contract Program that supports family farmers when milk prices drop below a specific value – or he votes to continue to indefinitely fund George Bush’s war.

When he last addressed the House he said the Congress’s

“responsibility … does not lie in nonbinding resolutions that send wrong messages to our troops and absolutely wrong messages to our enemies. It rests in the authorities vested in us by the Constitution of this great land, the power to fund or not all matters of government, especially war.”

Tomorrow is his chance. He objected to the “non binding” Iraq War Resolution of a few weeks ago and spoke for ten minutes defending Bush’s War. To believe Mr. McHugh’s statement above, the Concurrent Resolution (H. Con. Res. 63) was all form and no substance and hence gave him yet another excuse not to vote for it. Today, when the House votes on the supplemental appropriations bill HR 1591, he gets his chance to put his money – no, OUR money – where his mouth is. Tomorrow the supplemental appropriations bill starts the withdrawal of troops on March 1, 2008 over a period of six months. If the President cannot certify that the Iraqi government is pursuing all extremists, Sunni and Shiite alike, and sharing oil revenues with all Iraqis then the withdrawal is to commence on Oct 1, 2007 over a six month period.

Further, funds will not be made available for deployment of units that are not fully mission capable. That turns out to be almost all CONUS (Continental US) units.
He told us three weeks ago he wanted something meaningful. Now he’s got it. Will he do the right thing for our troops, our country and our farmers?

Humankind are creatures of community and community is what we are primarily about. Sustaining that community requires that its members perceive the way things are done is fair. Of course, the meaning of fair is subject to dispute, wherein lies our political rancor. However, it seems obvious that one characteristic of fair is that whatever is done, it is done openly. That openness demands that everybody has a chance to challenge the outlines of the outcomes. It is only such openness that has any chance to produce an outcome that everyone (nearly) can accept.

No free and fair society exists when people can be subject to arrest and detention at the arbitrary decision of a single person or group of persons. No free and fair society exists when a person does not have the right to answer charges against themselves in the open (a court of law). No free and fair society exists when even the evidence of alleged crimes cannot be confronted, indeed even known. No free and fair society exists when even the evidence of alleged crimes can be constructed from secret denunciations, inadvertent associations and god only knows what else. Continue Reading »

Yesterday, Mr. McHugh attended the Northeast Labor Council Legislative Breakfast to bask in their adoration of his vote on HR 800 the Employee Free Choice Act. As noted previously, this affirmative vote came only after trying to frustrate its passage by voting against Ordering the Previous Question.

It is also instructive to note the same duplicitous strategy in 1993 when he voted during his first term in the 103rd congress for HR 5 the CESAR CHAVEZ WORKPLACE FAIRNESS ACT which banned the retention of replacement workers hired during a strike. He was one of 195 cosponsors to a bill written by William Clay of Missouri. It would have amended the National Labor Relations Act 29 USC 158(a). Continue Reading »

It is time to clearly enunciate the argument for Congress to cut off funding for combat operations in Iraq.

We are involved in a momentous battle for the truth, with the war hawks able to manipulate the language and distort the logic that it should convey. They would have us believe that cutting funding for the war is cutting funding for our soldiers who are presently fighting that war. On the surface, it is a very seductive and compelling argument that has put fear in the hearts of Democrats who campaigned on ending the war. The distortion must not be allowed to stand.

We must understand the distinction between “the war” and “combat operations.” They are not the same. By lumping “combat operations” under “the war” the Republican hawks intend to manipulate the opposition into a corner that they fear they cannot escape. There is a world of difference between the two. Combat operations and war are not synonymous. Just as offensive operations are part of war, so are defensive maneuvers and tactical retreats. It takes as much planning and resources to conduct a tactical retreat as it does to wage an offensive attack. If the situation is futile, a seasoned military commander orders a tactical retreat. Not a surrender, but a conservation of resources to win another way. That other way in Iraq is political not militarily. Continue Reading »

Please welcome Publius and Yellerdog as guest writers to the blog. McHugh Watch welcomes a diversity of opinion regarding how we in the North Country and Central New York are being represented in Washington.

Theophilus does not edit guest contributors essays. We are only bound by the opinion that what happens in Washington has the most profound effect upon each of us who call the North Country our home. Again – Welcome.