War funding bill gets the OK

Minority Leader John Boehner, of Ohio, choked back sobs as he invoked the al Qaeda terrorist network’s 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

“After 3,000 of our fellow citizens died, when are we going to stand up and take them on?” he said. “When are we going to defeat them? Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you, if we don’t do it now, and if we don’t have the courage to defeat this enemy, we will long, long regret it.”

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Congress sent a $120 billion war spending bill to the White House late Thursday, abandoning a call for most U.S. troops to leave Iraq after an earlier veto by President Bush.
The bill replaces the earlier goal of withdrawing U.S. combat troops by March 2008 with a series of political benchmarks for Iraqi leaders to meet in order to receive continued American support.
But the move sharply split the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, where 140 members — including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — voted against the plan.
In the Senate, leading Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama were among the 14 members who opposed the measure.
The bill also includes the first increase in the federal minimum wage since 1997, bringing it up $2.10 an hour to $7.25. And it provides about $20 billion in domestic spending, ranging from money for veterans’ health care and hurricane reconstruction to drought relief for farmers and money for state-run children’s health insurance programs.
Democratic presidential hopeful and former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina harshly criticized the legislation.

“Washington failed America today when Congress surrendered to the president’s demand for another blank check that prolongs the war in Iraq,” Edwards said in a statement.

“Congress should immediately use its funding power to cap troop levels in Iraq at 100,000, stop the ongoing surge and force an immediate drawdown of 40,000 to 50,000 troops, followed by a complete withdrawal in about a year.”