Congressman Alan Grayson (D-Orlando) announced on Thursday that he intends to vote against the 2010 Supplemental Appropriations Act (H.R. 4899), also known as the “Emergency War Supplemental.”
The Congressman released the following joint statement in conjunction with Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.), Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Michael Honda (D-Calif.) ahead of the upcoming vote:
“It is disingenuous to say this is an ‘emergency’ supplemental. The only emergency is this: In funding the longest war in history, we are putting America further into debt with China, expanding the deficit, increasing wasteful government spending, undermining our budgetary process, risking Social Security, and solidifying debt that military leaders call our ‘number one’ national security threat.
The Iraq Study Group argued in 2006 that the government should stop funding the wars with emergency supplemental appropriation bills that avoid budgetary restrictions. Last year, President Obama pledged to stop these off-budget gimmicks to hide the cost of war. Last week, Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, cited debt as the number one threat to America’s national security. This week, Republican leader John Boehner stated that, ‘We need to look at the American people and explain to them that we’re broke,’ proposing to cut Social Security to pay for the war.
Our challenge: if you oppose deficit spending, debt dependency on China, cuts to Social Security, and are concerned about a debt-threat to our national security, then oppose this bill.”
