E Pluribus Unum

(Cross posted at Daily Kos)

Bush speaks! And there you have it: The Iraq war is "the decisive ideological struggle of our time."

Well. That's pretty serious talk. And I'll take it at face value.

That said, if I'm a Congressional Democrat, here's what I would do:

I would immediately draft a package of three related bills that accomplish the following:

1. End all off-budget funding of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
2. Roll back all existing tax cuts for people making, say, over $200 thousand in wages and passive income, and
3. Renew (or not) the original Authorization of the Use of Military Force (AUMF).

The first two bills should be designed to be "revenue neutral," i.e., the $100 billion Bush wants for this next round of war-funding should come out of the budget to be funded by increased revenues from rolling back the tax cuts. You could make the rollback cut-off point slide from the top-down as far as you need to raise the necessary funds. You'd try to preserve middle class tax cuts as much as possible, but -- hey -- it's not like we got so much in the first place, you know?

You could call the package of three bills by some exotic name like The Shared National Sacrifice Act of 2007, or The Protection of Future Generations' Prosperity & Security Act.

I should think all Democrats (including the Blue Dogs) would vote for these bills as would all non-Southern Republicans. You might even get up to a veto-proof majority. Not that Bush cares of course.

But heading into 2008, this would have the effect of showing that Democrats can show some leadership, some "bipartisanship," some vision, some responsibility, some sensitivity. It would show that Democrats are not just going to sit around and be blamed for losing the war.

Do it now and ram it through. Let's have a debate, baby. Congress controls the purse-strings. So let's talk about funding this war in the real world.