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?