Congress on Recess: High cost of Iraq war worries some GOP voters

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06106/682655-84.stm

Independents and Republicans in Western Pennsylvania, interviewed on the street and at meetings with House members home on recess, are growing increasingly concerned about the cost of military operations in Iraq, which now average more than $6 billion a month.

To be sure, many of the voters at the congressional events asked questions that hit closer to home: What is Congress going to do about gas prices? Will the president's tax breaks for small businesses be extended? Will there be more money for veterans' health care?

But when asked in interviews there and in other places about the job performance of members of Congress and the president just six months from the mid-term elections, many who have voted Republican in recent years immediately said they were disquieted by the rising cost of the war -- both in dollars and in casualties.

The cost underlies the more practical pocketbook concerns, they said, because they see the cost of stabilizing Iraq and fighting the insurgency as draining funds that otherwise would be available for domestic needs.

"It's time for them to come home; I don't think anyone thought it would be this long," said Marge Coddington of Friedens, Somerset County -- a Republican who voted for President Bush in both elections. "We could be using the money here right in this area -- there's a lot of people who need help and they're not getting it. ... I have a girl who works for me who has no health insurance -- it just irks me."

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. Gosh. You don't suppose the RW is starting to see the light, do you?

Talk about slow on the draw. And is it only the $$$ that they see as troubling?

[don954]

2. talk about a day late and a dollar short!

[joemurphy]

3. Gee, this war thing's getting expensive. We need a tax cut! n/t

[calimary]

4. But these folks look at EVERYTHING through the lens of the bottom line.

EVERYTHING. That's why they vote gop - because their own bottom line is always pandered to - tax cuts, more tax cuts and more tax cuts. Me Me ME. What's it gonna cost ME? Notice the woman who expressed concern that a girl who worked for her had no health insurance. As her employer, what sort of responsibility might that woman have for that girl?

It seems to me kind of shallow that these people start getting worked up because the war is COSTING too much. Well, I guess I'll take whatever anti-war sentiment I can get. But how about the concerns that the war might be A) Wrong? B) Amoral? C) ANTI-Christian? D)m?Built entirely on LIES? THAT doesn't bother them? It's how much the damned thing is starting to cost that gets their attention.

Dontcha just LOVE those priorities? Wonder what they'd say if they thought nuking Iran could be done on the cheap? :eyes:

[Old and In the Way]

5. Sad that it is money that they are questioning, not the ethical basis

of attacking and occupying an unarmed country for their resources.