Noted.

ANTIWAR DEMS WHIPPED: There's no way to put a positive spin on a House vote in which Democrats--many of whom were elected as antiwar candidates--provided the overwhelming majority of support for allocating $106 billion in additional funds to maintain the occupation of Iraq and expand the US presence in Afghanistan. But what made the June 16 vote on the supplemental appropriations bill (226-202) doubly disappointing was the fact that the Obama administration and its Congressional allies attached a measure that enables the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to extend its line of credit by $100 billion--with the actual cost to the United States estimated at around $5 billion but potentially much more.

The IMF, with its long history of structurally adjusting poor countries into deeper poverty, deserves no favors from the United States, as the antipoverty advocacy group RESULTS made abundantly clear during the debate. And as economist Dean Baker has noted, much of this latest money will likely be used to bail out European banks. So why would progressive Democrats back this bad bill? Immense pressure from the White House and Speaker Nancy Pelosi got 221 Democrats to sign on, including almost a score of progressives who had opposed a previous version of the supplemental.

To their credit, thirty-two Democrats voted "no" for the right reasons--mostly opposition to the direction of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars but also frustration with backdoor bank bailouts. Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich and California's Bob Filner get high marks for raising the alarm about the IMF line of credit in a letter to colleagues. But the real heroes were the freshmen members--such as Colorado's Jared Polis and Maine's Chellie Pingree--who withstood some of the most aggressive lobbying yet by an administration that, at least on issues of war and global finance, could do with a lot more checking and balancing from Congress.   JOHN NICHOLS

Subscriber Login

User Name

Password

Subscribe Now!

The only way to read this article and the full contents of each week's issue of The Nation online is by subscribing to the magazine. Subscribe now and read this article -- and every article published since for the past five years -- right now.

There's no obligation -- try The Nation for four weeks free.

• Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 68 cents a week!
• If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.
• Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.