The Pentagon’s $200 billion funding request to finance the war in Iran has not yet been made official, but Democratic opposition to this massive request is quickly becoming vocal.
Republicans are the same party that said the country couldn’t afford to spend $60 billion over two years to ensure that millions of people don’t face rising health insurance premiums and lose their access to health care, but now they want to spend $200 billion to finance an unpopular war in the Middle East that costs taxpayers billions of dollars a day.
Much like the rest of the American people, Democrats were not consulted or solicited in advance for their support of this war.
Given that people are struggling to afford food, utilities, gas for their cars, and health insurance, it makes sense that Democrats don’t want to just throw $200 billion at the Pentagon for Trump’s chosen war.
House Minority Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) was on CNN’s State Of The Union where Dana Bash asked if Jeffries would encourage Democrats to vote no: “Is this something that, if it comes before the House, you would whip, meaning you would urge your Democratic colleagues to vote no on any funding or would you allow them to vote their conscience?”
The parliamentary minority leader responded:
Well, we’ll have that conversation about leadership when we actually have a bill in front of us.
But I can tell you that there is currently strong opposition to the idea that this reckless, chosen war, which is now costing the American people more than $30 billion, should continue. We must propose, and we plan to do shortly, a war powers resolution so that we can put an end to this situation.
Jeffries’ response was very important because Senate Republicans have already made clear that they do not want to be solely responsible for financing Trump’s war.
Rep. Jeffries also made an important argument about why America should spend its money rather than go to war.
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