Congress has gone home for a two-week break with most of their business incomplete. They can’t pass any appropriations, they can’t pass the Farm Bill, they can’t pass a new Iraqi supplemental bill. Yet, it looks at though the Democrats may have finally found their footing. Activists have been pointing out for a long time that we can end the war by refusing to pass more supplemental funding to fight it. That’s obviously a less than ideal way of conducting U.S. foreign policy, but it is better than a never ending sinkhole of federal dollars and human lives. The Democrats have finally taken our advice.

After senate Republicans filibustered the latest supplemental bill, the Democrats said ‘fine, then no more money for you.’

Now, Democratic leaders say they won’t send President Bush a war spending bill this year. They calculate the military has enough money to run through mid-February.

Responding to the congressional blockage, Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday signed a memo ordering the Army to begin planning for a series of expected cutbacks, including the layoffs of as many as 100,000 civilian employees and another 100,000 civilian contractors, starting as early as January, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.

Naturally, this provides the Republicans the opportunity to say the Democrats are abandoning the troops in the field.

“We ought to get the troops the funding they need to finish the mission without restrictions and without a surrender date,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky…

…”We’d rather see the Department of Defense, the military planners and our troops focusing on military maneuvers rather than accounting maneuvers as they carry out their mission in the field,” [deputy WH press secretary] Fratto said…

…”Sen. Schumer only wants to fund pay, body armor and chow for the troops if he can put conditions on the money so that they cannot do the mission they have been ordered to do,” said [Heather] Wilson, R-N.M.

But, this time, the Democrats were willing to take the heat and fire back.

Republicans said there were appalled by Sen. Chuck Schumer’s comment, reported by The Associated Press on Thursday, that the Bush administration wouldn’t get a “free lunch.”

Schumer, D-N.Y., had told reporters that unless Bush accepted the restrictions, the Defense Department would have to eat into its core budget.

“The days of a free lunch are over,” he said…

…”We need to do more than say to the Iraqis that our patience has run out and that they need to seize the opportunity that has been given them,” said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich. “Their dawdling will only end when they have no choice.”

I have to compliment the Democrats when they show courage and do what we ask of them. As the New York Times says:

Democrats say they will continue to push the president and his Republican allies to concede their failed war policy and change course. They must keep at it. It’s far past time to begin a swift and orderly withdrawal of forces from Iraq’s civil war and to refocus on Afghanistan, where America’s win over the Taliban and Al Qaeda is in danger of being reversed.

The decision to withhold funds and tell the president to pound sand is a first step in the right direction.