Al Franken just spoke at the Capitol.
From the AP:
Last week, Coleman said the U.S. should take back $1.1 billion committed to Iraqi reconstruction after a government report found that Iraq has a projected budget surplus of $50 billion thanks mostly to oil and gas revenues.
Franken now says the U.S. should rescind $7.1 billion committed to Iraqi reconstruction, and spend it instead on highway infrastructure improvements in the United States.
The Coleman campaign didn’t have an immediate response to Franken’s proposal.
Al Franken said:
We absolutely owed it to the Iraqi people to help them rebuild - and we did. But we now know the Maliki government has the means to take over the reconstruction - it just refuses to spend the money because George Bush and Norm Coleman are all too willing to pick up the check. It’s time to take the training wheels off and end this culture of dependency. Norm Coleman stood idly by while $48 billion of taxpayer dollars were appropriated for this botched reconstruction - and just as his smoke-and-mirrors political ploy to rescind a small portion of that spending won’t force the Maliki government to change its behavior, it won’t fool Minnesotans into thinking he’s a responsible steward of their money.
The Iraqi Central Bank is sitting on billions — more than $30 billion currently. Even with this knowledge, Coleman continued to vote for billions in reconstruction money even as late as June 2008.
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I sort of covered some of this in the thread about Coleman & dependency.
Franken has been talking about this for years now. AND he’s been correct.
He’s pointed out the “Pottery Barn Rule.” Time to finish the payment on what we broke & get the hell on with OUR lives!!!!!
Normy is so deeply tucked in the pockets of this administration - that its embarrassing to visualize his neighbors.
Hope Normy’s warm & cozy there, at least.
Its time we got rid of DO-NOTHING Coleman, who doesn’t seem to have a clue & get some new blood.
What’s next? Maybe Normy wants to bring hockey to Iraq?