INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
C-SPAN’S “NEWSMAKERS”
Guest:
Congressman Jim McGovern (D-MA)
Reporters: Bryan Bender, Boston Globe &
Nicholas Johnston, Bloomberg News
Moderator: C-SPAN
TAPE DATE: Friday, October 5 2007
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SUNDAY, October 7, 2007 at 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. ET
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ROBB HARLESTON, HOST: Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts, is our guest to talk about the war surtax proposal by the representative, as well as the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, David Obey, and Representative John Murtha of Pennsylvania.
We’ll also be talking about some other House actions concerning the Iraq war.
Joining us for the interview is Bryan Bender of the “Boston Globe,” and Nicholas Johnston of Bloomberg News.
Representative McGovern, exactly how does this surtax work? And what exactly will it pay for?
U.S. REP. JIM MCGOVERN, (D-MA): Well, the way a surtax works is that it’s a tax on your tax liability. And so that if your tax liability is, let’s say, $1,000 – that’s what your tax bill is – the surtax would be anywhere from 2.5 percent in the lower income brackets up to 16 percent in the higher income brackets. So, $1,000, 2.5 percent of that is $25.
And basically, it’s an attempt to try to share the sacrifice. The only people who are sacrificing in this war in Iraq are the men and women we have put in harm’s way and their families. The rest of us are not. Certainly, no members of Congress are.
And the fact is that this war has cost us hundreds of billions of dollars. None of it is paid for. And what we believe is that we should pay for it.
I personally believe the war in Iraq is a mistake. I think it’s this generation’s mistake. But I don’t want it to be the next generation’s burden.
And so, if we truly believe in the concept of shared sacrifice, then we should all be willing to pay a little bit something.
HARLESTON: We’ll continue the interview with Bryan Bender of the “Boston Globe.”
BRYAN BENDER, NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER, “BOSTON GLOBE”: Well, on that point, the leadership has not really responded very positively to this proposal. Many people say it really doesn’t have a chance to go anywhere.
Given that, do you think – what’s the objective here? I mean, is this just another point of debate? Or do you really feel confident that you can change some minds?
MCGOVERN: Well, I think we need to focus on the issue of who’s paying for this war. I mean, the president’s going to request another $150 billion for Iraq. And none of it’s paid for. It’s all been put on our – it will all be put on our credit card, just like the previous $450 billion.
China will buy up the debt. Saudi Arabia will buy up the debt. India will buy up the debt.
How that’s in our national security interest is beyond me.
But I don’t think it’s fair for me to dump all this on the backs of my kids or my grandkids.
You know, since we proposed this idea, we’ve been getting calls from all over the country. A lot of people – a lot of World War II generation people – have called up and said, you know what? We had a similar tax and a similar view of shared sacrifice during World War II. We think we should pay for this, not our kids.
HARLESTON: Nicholas Johnston?
NICHOLAS JOHNSTON, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, BLOOMBERG NEWS: You’ve been in Congress – the Democrats have been the majority in both houses now for 10 months. In that time, you’ve allocated tens of billions of dollars more for the war. There are more troops in Iraq now than when you took the majority.
What’s your frustration level with trying to change this policy? And what about sort of anti-war activists that gave you this majority? What are you hearing from them?
MCGOVERN: I’m very, very frustrated. And if you look at the polls, the American people are frustrated.
They want this war to come to an end. They want us to take more decisive action, and I hope in the coming months that we will.
But look, there’s some reality here. You have to deal with the United States Senate. They need 60 votes to do anything, and we don’t have those 60 votes to do what we want to do on the war in Iraq.
Beyond that, there’s the man who sits in the White House, who can wield the veto pen. And then you need a supermajority to be able to overturn that veto. So, our hands are somewhat tied.
Having said that, I think it’s important, as we come to a showdown in January or February – that’s when this supplemental package is going to come up – that we draw our line in the sand. Enough is enough.
This war is a tragedy. In my opinion, it’s the worst political, military, diplomatic blunder in our history. And I want it to end as soon as humanly possible.
And so, we need to figure out ways to make sure that Democrats – and some Republicans – who want this war to come to an end, stand firm as we have this showdown in January or February.
JOHNSTON: But is the long term – it seems to be, with the obstacles you’re facing, nothing’s going to change until 2009, it seems. With the obstacles of both the Senate and President Bush, there just doesn’t exist enough sort of Democratic power in Congress to really change this.
MCGOVERN: Well, I mean, I think we need to think a little bit out-of-the-box and start putting the burden on the president. The president kind of always puts us in a corner by proposing these – by proposing supplemental requests at the last minute and saying, you’d better do this or the troops won’t get the funding.
Well, we need to put the president on notice well in advance that this is what we’re expecting. At a minimum, you need to develop a plan that will get all of our troops either redeployed or back home by the time you leave the presidency.
The fact of the matter is, this is George Bush’s war. I mean, he started he. He needs to finish it.
And this notion that we’re going to give him hundreds of billions of dollars to kick the ball down the field, to dump it on the next president of the United States, whoever he or she may be, that’s just cynical and it’s wrong. And I think we need to stop that.
HARLESTON: Bryan Bender.
BENDER: You mentioned this next installment of war funding that’s pending before the Congress. Talk a little bit, if you can, about some of the things you guys in the majority can do to affect that war bill.
I mean, clearly, you’re one of the first to raise the issue of maybe cutting off funding for the war. That doesn’t seem to be palatable to most people in Congress.
Can you put conditions on this money? Can you affect how the president spends this money? Clearly, there’s not support there to not provide the money.
MCGOVERN: Yes, well, first of all, we need to figure out what, in fact, we can do within the limitations that we’re now faced with.
But one of the powers of being the majority is that you have the ability to report things out for consideration, or not. You can withhold consideration of matters, if, in fact, you want to.
And again, my personal view is that, what we should be doing is to say to the president, we’re not going to give you a supplemental bill in January or February, unless you come up with a plan, unless you start working with us right now to come up with a plan that will bring our troops home by the time you leave the White House.
I mean, put him on notice now. We have several months to go before we hit the January-February deadline. Let him know that that’s what we expect, and let’s put the burden on him. And I think that’s one of the things that we should be thinking about.
We’re going to pass bills calling for more reports. And we’re going to pass bills expressing the sense of Congress that we should do X, Y and Z. That’s all fine and good. You know, if we keep the debate going and keep the pressure on the White House, I’m all for that. But I’m at a point where I’m tired of reports. And I’m tired of expressing my outrage over the war.
I want the war to come to an end. Most of my constituents want the war to come to an end. When I’m on an airplane flying between Washington and Boston, the people I talk to want the war to come to an end.
They’re puzzled why we’re not moving faster. And I think we need to take more dramatic actions to try to force the president’s hand on this.
HARLESTON: Nick Johnston.
JOHNSTON: Do you think a majority of House members would sort of go for the position of just withholding more funding? Because then you’re sort of always on that balance of saying you’re not giving the troops what they need.
MCGOVERN: Thanks to Nancy Pelosi’s leadership, a majority of the House has gone on record favoring a timetable to bring our troops home.
My bill, calling essentially for an immediate redeployment and withdrawal of our troops, received 171 votes. So, there is a growing number of people out there who not only want a timetable, but want to even move quicker than what I think the conventional wisdom has us moving on it.
So, the deal is just – the outrage in Congress is building. We need to keep the pressure on the White House.
JOHNSTON: These timetables have passed in the House. But as you said, they failed in the Senate.
In the recent Senate debate, there was talk about moving that deadline for withdrawals and making it sort of a goal, having withdrawals begin within a certain amount with sort of the aspiration that they’re finished.
Is that too watered-down for you?
MCGOVERN: I guess that would require you to trust this administration. I mean, given their record on telling the truth on Iraq from the very beginning of this war, I wouldn’t trust them to tell me the correct time, never mind to meet a goal – which I know they don’t want to meet.
Look. I really believe that the strategy of the White House is to dump this on the next president. And if that is their strategy, they’re not going to meet any goal on withdrawing or redeploying our troops. I mean, they’re interested in passing the buck.
I don’t think we should do that. There’s too much at stake. We’re losing too many American lives. Our credibility around the world is getting lower and lower and lower.
I think it would be a huge mistake, a colossal mistake, for us to kind of just concede that there’s nothing we can do, and the president will get his way.
I mean, this is a tragedy. And again, as we began the show, it is not only costing us in terms of human life, we’re going bankrupt.
We’ve spent $450 billion on the war in Iraq alone already. And he’s asking for another $150 billion for Iraq alone, come January-February. And he may ask for some more.
I mean, this is – and none of it’s paid for. It’s all on the backs of our kids.
It takes my breath away that he’s getting away with this. And I think the responsibility of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, needs to be that we need to hold him to account on this stuff.
HARLESTON: Our next question comes from Bryan Bender, national security reporter of the “Boston Globe.”
BENDER: Let me switch gears just a little bit and talk about the presidential campaign.
You’ve endorsed Senator Hillary Clinton.
MCGOVERN: That’s right.
BENDER: I understand you’re going to campaign for her this weekend in Iowa.
She’s been criticized by some in your party for not taking a strong enough position on the war, for not opposing the president, for not calling for a withdrawal. She’s couched her words very carefully.
Talk a little bit, if you can, as to why you think Hillary Clinton is the president who can end the war or who can chart some new direction here, since a lot of people don’t think that she’s the candidate for that.
MCGOVERN: A couple of things. One is, Hillary Clinton has said – and she said it to me – that if this war is not over by the time she becomes president, she will end the war. I believe her.
If I didn’t believe her, there’s no way in hell I’d be in Iowa or New Hampshire, or anywhere else for her. I mean, I believe it when she says she will end this war.
Secondly, Lyndon Johnson used to have this saying that it’s easy to get into wars, but hard as hell to get out of wars. It is hard to get out of wars. It requires skill, it requires ability, it requires diplomacy. It requires a whole bunch of things.
I believe that Hillary Clinton is the best qualified candidate to be able to help us get out of this war, and also, to launch kind of an aggressive campaign of diplomacy, to try to promote reconciliation in Iraq – I mean, to try to bring the neighboring countries, the worldwide community together to help the people of Iraq be able to determine a more peaceful future.
So, those are reasons why I’m supporting Senator Clinton.
I think the distinctions between all the candidates that are running on the Democratic side are really kind of non-distinctions. Everybody wants to end the war. And I think that’s a good thing.
But I think Hillary Clinton has the experience to be able to bring this war to an end as rapidly as humanly possible.
HARLESTON: Nicholas Johnston, congressional reporter for Bloomberg News, your next question for Representative Jim McGovern.
JOHNSTON: If she becomes president, do you fully expect her to have to end the war, that there will still be 100,000 or 130,000 troops there? Do you think Congress will be able to force President Bush to change his policy at all?
MCGOVERN: I want – I’m going to – my goal and my hope is going to be that Congress will do that. I mean, I don’t want to leave her – or anybody who assumes the White House, if it’s not her – with this burden of this war. I don’t think it’s right to be able to do that.
We all know what needs to be done. We all know that we’re going to have to, at some point, withdraw from Iraq. We all know that we have a big job in terms of diplomacy and in terms of trying to get the rest of the world to focus on how to promote reconciliation in Iraq.
We know what needs to be done. Why are we waiting? Why are we waiting to the next president to do all this stuff?
I think – it’s my own view – I think that Democrats need to understand that people expect us to do more than what we’ve been doing. And they can’t expect the impossible, but they expect us to fight like hell to try to bring this war to an end.
And I think, to the extent that we do that, even if we’re not totally successful, I think people will acknowledge that we’re doing what we can.
JOHNSTON: Have you been fighting hard enough so far?
MCGOVERN: I think we could fight harder.
JOHNSTON: By doing what?
MCGOVERN: Well, I think – you know, I wouldn’t have allowed that last supplemental to go to the president. I would have picked a bigger fight on that.
Having said that, the majority of my colleagues thought differently.
But I think – we know that another request is coming down the road. And I think we need to think thoughtfully, and we need to think strategically about how we can leverage that into getting this White House to start talking with us about withdrawing and redeploying our troops.
I don’t want an endless war. I don’t want this dumped on the next president. I don’t think anybody does.
And I think a lot of my Republican colleagues, quite frankly, privately believe the same thing. They’re just afraid of the White House and afraid of their own leadership.
BENDER: So, you think a good strategy in dealing with the war funding at this point is to try and find a way to put conditions on the money. In other words, we’ll give you this funding that you’ve requested, Mr. President, but you have to do A, B and C. Then …
MCGOVERN: You have to guarantee that we’re going to – you have to have a plan in place that will guarantee we’re bringing our troops home, that we’re getting them out of combat missions, that we’re redeploying them by the time you leave the White House.
You can’t leave the White House and dump this mess on somebody else. I mean, that’s the bottom line, in my opinion.
JOHNSTON: But that’s what you did on the last supplemental. And it was vetoed, and it came back. And so …
MCGOVERN: I would have kept on sending it to him. I would have kept on sending it to him.
JOHNSTON: If you were speaker – but you’re not. So, what’s – is that position, though, sort of growing?
Have you found that – are more Republicans and more Democrats, who might be wary of withholding funding completely, perhaps finally getting fed up? Is the debate in January going to be different than the debate that was in March?
MCGOVERN: I think it will be.
But let me also say that, you know, we had a vote on this Abercrombie-Tanner resolution, which, while it’s not anywhere near as strong as I would like it to be, it does have everybody – it has the majority of the House and Senate will be on record as saying, we want you to start thinking about getting out.
You know, which is, I think – the general public are probably saying, well, what does that mean? I mean, that’s not very much.
But in kind of the dynamics of what’s happening here, I think it’s significant that people are saying, we want the administration to start planning for withdrawal.
I think, come January or February, I think after people have spent some time at home with their constituents over the holidays, I think the intensity about trying to bring our troops home and kind of set a date certain is going to be even greater.
HARLESTON: Representative McGovern, leadership says – House leadership says – that the chances of this war surtax proposal getting to the floor is practically nil. So, that being the case, what’s the point?
MCGOVERN: Well, one of the points is to try to start focusing discussion on the fact that this war is not being paid for. I mean, if somebody could tell me a good reason why we should dump the costs of this war onto our kids and grandkids, I’m all ears.
The reaction that we received from the White House was, well, there’s the Democrats – just want to spend our money. Wait a minute. You’re already spending the money – hundreds of billions of dollars.
The issue is, who’s going to get the bill? We’re not paying for it. I mean, the American people are not being asked to sacrifice, other than our soldiers and their families. But nobody’s being asked to sacrifice.
I don’t think it’s right, as a member of Congress – as a father – to say, I’m going to dump this mistake, this burden, this financial burden on my kids.
And so, look – and I understand the Democratic leadership – it’s an election year; even though the election isn’t until next year, it starts earlier now – don’t want to get into this big kind of tax debate with the Republicans, because they’re afraid it’ll be demagogued.
But somebody, someday, somehow, is going to have to pay for this stuff. And we need to start talking about those things.
This should not be a radical idea. This should not be a controversial idea. This is about responsibility.
And the fact that the reaction has been to distance yourself or to outright say this is a bad idea, or demagogue this issue, kind of skirts the real question about who’s going to pay for it.
All I’m suggesting – as somebody who’s very much anti-war – is that I’m willing to pay my fair share. And if you think like the president does, that this war is comparable to the Revolutionary War – which I think is kind of a wacky analogy – but if you believe that, boy, wouldn’t you think that you’d believe in a concept of shared sacrifice?
Why should our soldiers and their families be the only ones sacrificing here? Let’s take the responsibility to assume the costs of this war, so that the next generation doesn’t have to do it.
HARLESTON: Bryan Bender.
BENDER: Well, talk a little bit – you threw out the figures, $450 billion so far in Iraq. With this new supplemental it would bring it over 600, I guess.
On the Budget Committee, talk a little bit about how you’ve grappled with how to fit that bill into the larger picture of federal expenditures. I would assume that it affects other programs, because you guys have to sit around and come up with a budget resolution, how much you’re going to spend. Talk a little bit about that
MCGOVERN: What the administration has done – again, in my opinion, very cynically – is that they get around kind of the normal budget rules by saying this is an emergency. You know, that this is emergency spending, so we don’t have to have offsets on it.
Right now, the way our rules work – and the Democrats have kind of reinstituted fiscal responsibility, this pay-as-you-go – if I want to increase the education budget by a dollar, I’ve got to find an offset somewhere. You’ve either got to raise revenues by a dollar, or cut a program by a dollar.
If emergencies come up – like if a part of our country gets hit by a hurricane or an earthquake – there’s a way around those rules, but to get relief immediately.
Now, one could argue, potentially, that the initial expenditure for the war in Iraq was an emergency. We didn’t know what the cost was going to be.
But now we’re into the fifth year of this war. We’ve been fighting this war longer than we fought World War II. This notion that we don’t know what it’s going to cost, that we can’t budget for it, that we can’t pay for it, that’s just crazy.
I mean, there is a reason why they don’t want to pay for the war, because they don’t want the American people to understand how much it’s going to cost and what the real costs are.
I simply saying, whether you’re anti-war like me, or you’re pro-war like Bush, the bottom line is, the responsible thing to do is to not dump these costs on our kids, and go through the regular budget process, so that you do pay as you go and you make the necessary adjustments.
If the Republicans don’t want to – if people don’t want to talk about a surtax, which, I think, if you figure out the numbers, it’s very little we’re asking people to pay – if you don’t want to talk about that, then you have to talk about cutting spending.
Now, how many departments are you going to – you know, federal departments – are you going to eliminate to pay for this? Are you going to wipe out the student loan program? Or wipe out children’s health care? Or wipe out whatever, but the deal is, my view is you need to pay for this stuff.
HARLESTON: Nick Johnston.
JOHNSTON: You mention the obstacles that anti-war Democrats in the House face in sort of getting these initial proposals to become law. There’s the Senate – the hurdles in the Senate of 60 votes, 67 votes – the president’s veto.
When you’re traveling back to Massachusetts and you meet people who are anti-war, and they ask why you can’t end it, do they sort of – do they understand sort of the procedural issues here? Or do they just say, get it done?
MCGOVERN: They say, “Get it done.”
JOHNSTON: And is there going to be a problem for Democrats sort of going forward, who were elected in the majority to ostensibly end this war, being unable to?
MCGOVERN: Look. I think Speaker Pelosi has done an incredible job of moving our Democratic Caucus to a point where there is consensus that we need to have a timetable to bring our troops home. She has done this masterfully.
The problem is, we have the United States Senate, as you said, and the president.
The bottom line is, as we come into this next battle over the supplemental funding, I think we need to ratchet it up. And that’s something that I think we’re going to have to think long and hard about.
I do think that people will not be content for us just to roll over. I think people want us to fight the president on this. They want the troops home. They believe the war in Iraq is making us more vulnerable around the world. They believe it has diminished our standing around the world.
They want action.
And so, look. I think we need to fight the battle and do it in a meaningful way. Otherwise, I think people will be very discouraged.
JOHNSTON: Do you think there will consequences for Democrats in the elections next year, if we’re still where we are, if another supplemental has been passed with no conditions, and there are still 130,000 there, and you’ve had an entire session of Congress where nothing has changed?
MCGOVERN: Yes, I think, when people look at the alternative, which is the Republicans, then they kind of realize that we’ve got to stick with the Democrats. All I’m simply saying is that people want the war to come to an end.
The Republicans, for whatever reason, are not breaking from their leadership. It may be just up to us to be able, to have to force that issue.
But people want us to fight the good fight. And I think we need to do that.
BENDER: A couple of specifics on this new war funding bill. We learned last week that it’s going to be larger than initially anticipated. A big chunk of it – I think almost $50 billion – is for these new armored vehicles with the V-shaped hull to protect U.S. troops in Iraq.
Do you think that that is a reasonable investment? I mean, it’s a lot of money. It’s thousands of these vehicles. And as someone who is trying to get the United States out of Iraq, do you think that that’s money well spent?
MCGOVERN: Look. I would rather have the money spent on bringing our troops out of Iraq. If it was up to me, that’s how the bill would be conditioned.
I’m not going to vote for a supplemental bill that doesn’t begin the process of bringing our troops home or redeploying them. I don’t care what’s in the bill. I mean, this war needs to come to an end.
So, that’s – I mean, yes, I want our troops to have the very best equipment. It would have been nice, when we started the war in Iraq, if the president had made sure that our troops had the best equipment. Unfortunately, we sent them over there with not the best equipment. And that’s something that somebody should be held to account for.
But the bottom line is, we are all committed to making sure our troops get what they need to protect them when they’re in harm’s way.
But I think the best way to protect them is to bring them home or reunite them with their families.
HARLESTON: Nick Johnston, you get the last question.
JOHNSTON: You’re not going to get any withdrawal things past a presidential veto without significant Republican support. But Republicans have remained pretty well unified behind the president, particularly on timetables for withdrawal.
Privately, are they beginning to crack? Are you hearing from colleagues that, maybe in January, when this new supplemental comes along, they might be more amenable to some kind of withdrawal?
MCGOVERN: I have heard from a lot of my Republican colleagues that they’re catching hell when they go back home, that people are really angry at them. And one of the reasons why so many of them voted for this Abercrombie-Tanner bill was, I think, they’re looking for some cover.
But I don’t think constituents, no matter who their congressperson is, are going to be satisfied with bills that are “cover.” They’re going to want concrete results.
And people want this war to come to an end. And they’re going to be looking at their members of Congress and the stuff that they do, as a determinant as to whether they will vote for them again.
So, I think we are going to get Republican defections as we get closer to the November elections.
HARLESTON: Representative Jim McGovern, Democrat of Massachusetts and a member of the House Budget Committee, thank you very much for being on “Newsmakers.”
MCGOVERN: Thank you.
(BREAK)
HARLESTON: Bryan Bender of the “Boston Globe,” what did you learn in this interview, specifically about what this surtax is going to be paying for?
BENDER: Well, I mean, Congressman McGovern comes from a district in Massachusetts – Worcester, Massachusetts – which is very anti-war. And I think he strongly believes that every American should pay a little bit – right now – to pay for the war.
But clearly, I think he feels like he’s banging his head against the wall, because most of his colleagues in Congress are not in favor of this.
But clearly, I think the objective here is to add something else to the debate, to really get this argument out there, that the longer this war goes on, the more billions of dollars it will cost. And that’s a cost that is going to affect the American people for years to come. It’s not something that we’re paying for today.
But I think, having said that, I don’t have a whole lot of confidence – and I don’t think he does, either – that this is going to pass.
HARLESTON: Nicholas Johnston of the Bloomberg News, put this interview for us into some kind of a political context.
JOHNSTON: I think he’s made clear that the next big battle on the war will be in January, or after the New Year, when the House takes up the new funding request.
But he also – there’s a sense of, I don’t know, resignation or frustration, that he knows that it’s a very, very steep, uphill climb to once again try and put some kind of withdrawal timetable. Because as he laid out the hurdles that have to be faced – the 60-vote hurdle in the Senate for Republican filibusters, and then the supermajorities in the House and the Senate to overcome a presidential veto – he used words like “hope” and he “wishes” that they could get some kind of withdrawal.
But I seriously think that the next president will be dealing with this, because the Democrats just don’t have enough support in either house, either chamber, to get it through.
HARLESTON: Bryan Bender, in talking to some of the folks in the national security apparatus, especially some of the generals involved in the war, what do you get? What’s the sense that you get from them regarding how they see what’s going on in Congress?
BENDER: Well, I think, in the last couple of weeks, really, we’ve seen a little bit of a turning point, I think – at least in terms of the view of the Pentagon and the generals who have to execute this policy.
I think there’s real concern that the war in Iraq is breaking the Army, that at the current level of troops – 150,000 plus – to sustain that continually for years to come, or at least a couple more years, is really going to be difficult, especially for the Army.
And I think that’s interesting. They’re obviously not calling for a withdrawal. That’s not their job.
But I think there could be some new pressure brought to bear on the Congress – and also on the president – if the generals are starting to say, “Hey, wait a minute. We’re bogged down here. We’re not able to respond to maybe some other things that are going on in the world.”
So, that’s going to be interesting to watch, because I think that could affect the funding debate come next year.
JOHNSTON: And that was a factor in the reduction that President Bush announced. I mean, to a large extent, that was because those troops had to come home. They refused to extend deployments beyond, I think it was 12 or 15 months. And that (ph) would (ph) be required to keep the current troop levels there.
So, I think a lot of the current troop reductions are a result of just manpower issues in the Army. And I think that might continue to play out.
HARLESTON: How much of what’s going on in Congress right now is a concern for the troops, versus looking out for saving or preserving the Democratic majority in Congress after the next election?
JOHNSTON: I think it would be difficult to sort of get at their complete intentions. But I think, certainly, Democrats said after the election that they were elected into the majorities of both the House and Senate to end the war. And I think that they have to remain committed to that.
I was speaking to someone from MoveOn.org a couple of weeks ago, who said that, if they start to back away from this, they could face primary challenges, if they start to compromise on these issues.
And I think it’s very important to Democratic constituents that they stick to these sort of timetables and they continue to fight to end the war.
HARLESTON: Bryan Bender, did you want to make another point?
BENDER: Well, I mean, I was going to say, talking about the political atmosphere surrounding this debate, I think another challenge the Democrats face as this debate continues, is that the president has been very effective in portraying the war in Iraq as part of a global struggle against Islamic fascism, I think is the new term.
And that’s a very effective talking point. It resonates with a lot of Americans who still remember 9/11. And whether Iraq had anything to do with 9/11 or not, they’ve done a very good job of conflating the two – rightly or wrongly.
And coming into the presidential election season, members of the House are all up for reelection, that’s going to be very difficult to combat.
I know for a fact that Republican strategists are already sort of fine-tuning that message again. And I think part of the message will also include Iran, that we can’t leave Iraq, because Iran will take advantage, Iran will benefit from it. And that’s going to be a very strong argument.
And the Democrats are going to have to figure out a way to combat that.
HARLESTON: Senator Judd Gregg of the Budget Committee, the ranking member on the Budget Committee, says that he doesn’t support the Obey surtax proposal, but he does see this – he does look for other options to pay for the war in Iraq.
Will there be Republicans that will slowly come around to this, or want to get more into this discussion about how to pay for the war?
JOHNSTON: I think there’s been a constant concern among Republicans and Democrats about what Congressman McGovern said about doing it outside of the normal appropriations process. No one likes doing these constant sort of extraneous bills for hundreds of billions of dollars.
And I think there’s a growing group of Republicans, and Democrats, in both the House and Senate, that would rather have these budgeted actually in the regular appropriations bills, so that they can be planned for and better kept track of.
But we’re already half-way through the budget process for this year now, and the supplemental is already out, so that might be something for the next president to worry about.
HARLESTON: Bryan Bender of the “Boston Globe,” and Nicholas Johnston of Bloomberg News, thank you very much for being on this edition of “Newsmakers.”
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