Blog Post
McClatchy Newspapers
The federal government has too much money on its hands.
That may be surprising, especially since the government is flat broke, with a $15 trillion national debt.
But it's also awash in shiny one-dollar coins, with more than a billion of them going unused by the public and piling up at bank vaults across the country.
To deal with the excess, the Obama administration announced Tuesday that it would all but halt production of its special presidential dollar coins for general circulation.
On November 29, Congressman Adam Smith supported passage of H.R. 3012, the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, in the House of Representatives.
For all of the challenges in Iraq right now, we cannot lose track of the fact that it is but one piece of a much larger, more complicated struggle. We must also understand both our limited ability to force a given outcome in Iraqi efforts to forge a post-Saddam government, and the reality that many parts of that power struggle do not relate directly to our own larger struggle against al-Qaida and groups that support their violent totalitarian ideology.
For all of the challenges in Iraq right now, we cannot lose track of the fact that it is but one piece of a much larger, more complicated struggle. We must also understand both our limited ability to force a given outcome in Iraqi efforts to forge a post-Saddam government, and the reality that many parts of that power struggle do not relate directly to our own larger struggle against al-Qaida and groups that support their violent totalitarian ideology.
Last week, the Bush Administration vetoed legislation that would have outlawed waterboarding after previously declaring the technique legal and ordering the CIA to resume its use. The CIA has expressed concerns about the technique's legality and acknowledged this month that they had in fact waterboarded terrorism suspects. President Bush should have heeded their warnings and signed the Intelligence Authorization bill sent to him by Congress.
The Bush administration's fixation on Iraq costs us dearly in the struggle to comprehensively confront the threat to global peace and stability presented by al-Qaida and its allies. President Bush's final term in office is almost up, though, and the next president will have the opportunity to forge a better strategy.
An April 8 News Tribune editorial called efforts to change the president's failed Iraq policy "risky gamesmanship" and asserted that Congress should delay until 2008 the tough decisions American voters demanded in 2006. This would be a gross abdication of Congress' responsibilities.
This Veterans Day, we again find ourselves engaged in conflicts around the world. Our troops are serving with valor, and we should keep them in our thoughts and prayers. We are grateful to them and to all of our veterans who have held the line in defense of liberty since the birth of our country.