U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., said Thursday he would introduce a piece of legislation on spending in Iraq in the Senate early next week in response to the supplemental spending bill currently under consideration in the House.
The bill, which he plans to sponsor along with Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., would not include timelines for troop withdrawals or redeployments as does the House spending bill, Webb said in an address to the National Press Club Thursday afternoon. The senator called such timelines “generally unworkable.”
“The difficulty on funding issues for a war that’s ongoing is it’s very hard to target where that money will go,” he said after his address. “All of the funding bills I have seen have been unworkable.”
Webb quickly distinguished his bill prohibiting the use of funds for military operations in Iran, introduced last week, from the same characterization.
“The difference is the Iran bill cuts off funds to begin with,” he said.
He also reasserted his position that the United States should bring in Iraq’s neighbors — Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia — as part of a diplomatic effort to resolve the war.
“[We need] a diplomatic solution which will provide an umbrella under which we can withdraw our troops,” he said.
The senator also addressed what he called a growing economic inequality among Americans and said corporations around the country have benefited too much at the expense of American workers.
“Corporate profits in this country are at an all-time high as a percentage of national wealth, while wages and salaries are at all-time lows,” Webb said. “We have an American tax system that is rewarding a company for abandoning Americans.”
