Why did Kerry vote against the $87 billion? Didn't he want the troops to have funding?

Of course Kerry wanted the troops to have the funding they needed. The issue was whether the bill was really the best way to help the troops, or whether it was a way to promote bad policy in Iraq, give special treatment to Halliburton and other corporate friends of the Bush administration, and stick our children and grandchildren with a massive debt while cutting taxes on wealthy people. Kerry was taking a stand for the troops by objecting to the irresponsible way that Bush was conducting the war — the failed strategy that has made Iraq the quagmire that it is, in which our troops carry almost all of the burden alone. He was also fighting for the ordinary American taxpayer by objecting to the irresponsible way that Bush insisted on funding the war, and standing up against giving special treatment to companies like Halliburton.

"I'm prepared to spend whatever it takes to be successful in Iraq. But I want to spend the money smart. I don't want to spend 87 billion dollars, when it comes from the average American, when it ought to be coming from the wealthiest Americans instead." — John Kerry, Senate floor, October 17, 2003

The most important thing to understand is that there were different proposals on how to provide the funding, which is typical in the legislative process. Kerry supported a fiscally responsible, pay-as-you-go approach — covering the funding by rolling back Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. What the Republican ads don't tell you is that Bush insisted on adding the total to the deficit and threatened to veto the entire bill if it was not written exactly the way he wanted.

"I'm not going to give the president a blank check to pile debt on top of our children yet again, build the deficit up, because he's unwilling to ask for shared sacrifice in America." — John Kerry, Senate floor, October 17, 2003

John Kerry and Joseph Biden had proposed an amendment in which the $87 billion would be covered by rolling back part of Bush's tax cut for the wealthiest Americans. The Bush administration insisted that the entire $87 billion had to be added to the deficit. Kerry stood up for the American taxpayers and for our children and grandchildren who will have to pay the bill for this war.

"Since President Bush took office, the cumulative 10-year budget surplus has declined by almost $10 trillion. We have gone from the largest budget surplus in American history to the largest deficit in American history this year. We have added nearly $1 trillion to the debt inside of a single Presidential term. On top of that, we have passed a huge tax cut during wartime for the first time in American history. And that is the height of irresponsible, reckless budgeting." — John Kerry, Senate floor, October 2, 2003

After Kerry and Biden's amendment was defeated, the Bush administration made additional demands, backed up by the threat of a veto. Kerry supported a version of the bill in which $10 billion of the total, earmarked for reconstruction of Iraq, would be considered a loan to be repaid to the United States. Again he was standing up for the ordinary American taxpayer who would be stuck with the bill. President Bush threatened to veto the bill if any part of the funding had to be repaid to the United States. Bush insisted that the U.S. taxpayers had to foot the entire bill, and that all of it had to be added to our deficit; Bush was not willing to embrace the idea of fiscal responsibility in any way. President Bush also strongly objected to provisions in the bill which would have funded medical care for veterans.

It is one of the great ironies of this election that Kerry's stand for fiscal responsibility has been attacked as unpatriotic and distorted into the ludicrous claim that he was against funding the troops, while Bush's assault on medical care and benefits for veterans has received little notice.

Kerry also objected strongly to the fact that much of the money was earmarked for corporate friends of the Bush administration, such as Halliburton, via no-bid contracts:

"Second, who reaps the benefit of this $20 billion for reconstruction? On one level, of course, it is the Iraqi people. But let's not fool ourselves. Halliburton and other select American companies with close, high-level connections to the Bush administration are getting the lion's share of the contracts funded by this money. No one can object to giving contracts to American firms, but these contracts ought to be offered on a competitive, open bid basis. And at a minimum, these firms should be required to seek subcontractors from outside the United States including Iraqi companies where feasible. Opening and internationalizing the contracting process would provide much-needed transparency and give others in the international community a stake in the success of the reconstruction process." — John Kerry, Senate floor, October 17, 2003

In short, Kerry didn't think wealthy Americans should get a tax cut while the country was sunk much further into debt, while funds were earmarked to benefit corporate friends of the Bush administration. Of course, the Republican ads paper over all of these issues by claiming that it was simply a question of "supporting the troops." As explained in the section below, Kerry argued that the best way to support the troops was to take a hard look at what was going on in Iraq, not just throw more money at policies that weren't working.

"Some of these things are a little complicated. They like to simplify them and pretend to America. The pretending time is over." — John Kerry, MSNBC interview, July 16, 2004

When Kerry clarified the legislative process behind the bill to the International Association of Firefighters (on March 15, 2004) and explained that there had been different versions of the bill, the Republicans took nine words out of context ("I voted for it before I voted against it") and used them to claim that Kerry was making no sense. In fact, he was making perfect sense: He voted for funding the troops by rolling back tax cuts, and he voted against sticking our children and grandchildren with the tab by adding to the deficit. Obviously, voting Yes on one version of a bill and No on another is not inconsistent, any more than ordering a product and then canceling the order when an entirely different product is substituted. The Bush campaign insults the intelligence of the American people by taking a serious explanation of a serious topic which affects all of us and treating it as a joke.

"I was willing to vote for the $87 billion providing we paid for it, providing we asked America to sacrifice, all of us together. So Joe Biden and I… brought an amendment to say, 'Hey, America, rather than have a $690 billion tax cut for everybody over the next 10 years who's earning, you know, over $200,000 a year, why don't we just share the sacrifice and take $600 billion, and that way we could pay for the entire war right up front and not add to the deficit?'

Guess what? George Bush said no. The Republicans said no. And what they're doing is trying to once again, mislead America, as they do so effectively, make a joke out of something that's serious. They've added that money to the deficit. They're burdening our children. John Edwards and I want to be fiscally responsible, put America back on track, and that's exactly what we're going to do." — John Kerry, MSNBC interview, July 16, 2004

Kerry voted No in order to take a stand for protecting our troops as well as the taxpayers. Kerry stated clearly that his vote was an objection to the failed go-it-alone policy that has meant that our troops are carrying almost the entire burden and taking almost all of the risks. He demanded that President Bush come up with a realistic plan to win the peace and make a serious effort to bring in allies in order to relieve the pressure on our troops. The fact that Bush had to come back to ask for more money from Congress (after assuring Congress and the public that the war would be very inexpensive) was just one more sign of the larger problem: poor planning and failed strategy.

"It was bad enough to go it alone in the war, but it is inexcusable and incomprehensible that we choose to go it alone in the peace. One of the reasons we are facing $87 billion is that the administration has stiff-armed the United Nations and has not been willing to bring other nations to this cause through the deftness of their diplomacy, the skill of their diplomacy." — John Kerry, Senate floor, October 2, 2003

Kerry's position in this debate was 100% consistent with what he had been saying all along: It was irresponsible to require American troops to carry the burden almost entirely alone, and the most responsible course of action would be to make the policy changes necessary to bring in more allies and reduce the risk to our troops.

"I cannot vote for the President's $87 billion request because his is not the most effective way to protect American soldiers and to advance our interests. Simple common sense tells us that we need more countries sharing the burden and more troops on the ground providing security." — John Kerry, Senate floor, October 17, 2003

The central point that Kerry made in explaining his vote was that the Bush administration had not been held accountable for its failed policies in Iraq and had not been pushed to come up with a detailed, realistic plan for securing the peace and getting our troops out. In short, he was taking a stand for requiring the Bush administration to act responsibly and stop exposing our troops to unnecessary risk due to poor planning and lack of allies.

"It is imperative that we succeed in Iraq, but to do so, we have to tackle the challenge of rebuilding Iraq an effective way, not the Bush administration's failed way. We need a detailed plan, including fixed timetables and costs, for establishing civil, economic and political security in Iraq.We need to internationalize both the military and civilian sides of the occupation and build a coalition that will provide tangible assistance in terms of boots on the ground and money in the coffers for Iraqi reconstruction. Only in this way will we reduce the risk to American service members and alleviate some of the financial burden on the American taxpayer for reconstruction." — John Kerry, Senate floor, October 17, 2003

It is hypocritical for the Bush administration to claim that Kerry's stand for protecting the troops was actually a blow against the troops, The hypocrisy is even greater, though, since the reason the troops so desperately needed more equipment was precisely because Bush had insisted on going to war quickly and with inadequate preparation.

"The president made the decision as to when to send our troops to war, no one else. He decided the date. He decided that diplomacy was over. He decided to go forward. And on the date that they went into Iraq, they didn't have the armament on the Humvees, the armored doors, they didn't have the equipment they needed in some regards, and they didn't have the state-of-the-art body armor." — John Kerry, March 16, 2004

But didn't Kerry say that he wouldn't leave the troops without funding, even if his version of the bill was not the one adopted? Yes, he did, and he kept that promise. A Senate vote is not like a public election with secret ballots and an unpredictable outcome. Senators announce which way they intend to vote, and everyone knows from the get-go whether a bill will pass. John Kerry knew the bill was going to pass with plenty of votes to spare. This meant that he, along with 11 other senators, were free to cast their votes for taking the burden off of our troops and off of the ordinary American taxpayer, without any doubt that the troops were going to get their funding. The concept of casting a vote in order to make a point, even though you already know it won't affect the outcome, is not a newfangled idea. Though Republican ads try to suggest that Kerry was doing something very unusual, in fact it's standard practice in Congress. Many Republican senators, including John McCain, Trent Lott and Arlen Spector, have done exactly the same thing with respect to other bills. Naturally, the 30-second ads from the Bush campaign never explain that this is how Congress works, and they create a false impression that Kerry was actually trying to block funding for the troops.

Even if the bill had failed — which was never a possibility — there would have been plenty of time to rewrite it and pass a new version. That's why Bush felt comfortable threatening to veto the entire thing, because he knew there would be time to come up with another bill and get the troops the funding they needed. Now he turns around and claims that Kerry's stand for protecting our troops and the taxpayers somehow presented a real danger that the troops would not get funding. The reality is that Bush was the only one with the power to torpedo the funding bill, and he threatened to do it if he didn't get exactly what he wanted.

"It is hypocritical for the Bush Administration to call this a vote against the troops when they threatened to veto it themselves if the final version included a Senate-approved provision to make $10 Billion of these funds into a loan to be paid back to the U.S. taxpayers. If there was time for the Administration to veto this bill and still get money to the troops, they cannot turn around and claim that Kerry’s vote would have cut off funding for the troops – they cannot have it both ways. The simple reality is that the troops were always going to get their funding – the only real question was whether the President was going to change his failed Iraq policy." — Statement from the Kerry campaign at www.johnkerry.com

Links

• White House Threatens Veto of Iraq Aid Bill, CNN, October 22, 2003
• Kerry Blasts Bush on Protecting Troops, Boston Globe, March 17, 2004
• Did Kerry Vote No On Body Armor for Troops? Fact-Check.org, March 18, 2004
• John Kerry Statement on the Senate Floor, October 2, 2003
• John Kerry's Statement on the Senate floor, October 17, 2003
• Raw Data: White House Veto Threat, FOX News reports the veto threat, October 21, 2003
• Outspinning Hume, Daily Howler, August 12, 2004
• Our Flyer, condensed explanation of the controversy over the $87 billion

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