This Week in Washington: Playing Politics With the War on Terror

Brian Darling / June 09, 2008

Here’s a preview of what’s happening this week in Washington.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6YshohNEUM[/youtube]

May was a successful month in Iraq, yet progress with the war supplemental has been slowed by the left. House leaders want to tie war funding to domestic spending, including unemployment insurance and pet pork projects. Time is running out for our troops without defeatist language and domestic pork.

Heritage’s Brian Riedl says Congress has disregarded its promise to restore fiscal responsibility in Washington. The House is about to follow the Senate in passing a budget resolution conference report that:

1. Assumes tax increases topping $3 trillion over the next decade.
2. Includes provisions that could be used to raise taxes by hundreds of billions more.
3. Increases discretionary spending by 8% for the second consecutive year.
4. Completely ignores the impending explosion of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid costs.
5. Creates rules that bias the budget toward tax increases.

If Congress wants to lower carbon emissions, lawmakers should make a commitment to nuclear energy, writes Jack Spencer of Heritage. To deny the United States access to nuclear technology while mandating carbon dioxide caps is hypocritical and indefensible. The United States will need substantially more nuclear power to survive the Lieberman–Warner bill economically.