Funding the Afghan War: The Collision of Obama's Foreign and Domestic Policies

On Tuesday, December 1, 2009, at West Point Academy, President Obama announced his much anticipated plan for handling the war in Afghanistan. Obama detailed his plan to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan by summer 2010 and to start withdrawing troops in July of 2011. While this announcement helped to quell the buzz about what actions are to be taken in Afghanistan, it initiated yet another equally heated debate over the funding of Obama’s plan. Up from $43 billion in 2008 and $55 billion in 2009, the estimated cost of the war in Afghanistan is expected to reach $100 billion in 2010 with Obama’s plan, increasing the overall cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars to nearly $1 trillion.

While President Obama is demonstrating his power of the sword, the current economic situation is forcing President Obama and Congress to evoke their power of the purse very wisely to fund these military actions. The Republicans of Congress, rejecting proposals for increased taxes, support cutting back funds to federal agencies and/or using unspent stimulus funds to pay for the increased military spending while Democrats are pushing for a new “war surtax” with the fear that the new military spending may take away from much-needed domestic spending.

With Aaron Wildavsky’s classic concept of one U.S. president but “two presidencies,” one concerned with domestic affairs while the other handles foreign policy, in mind, it seems that President Obama’s two presidencies are clashing in competition for funding. With the U.S. in a bad recession and a war in need of a new direction in Afghanistan, it seems our President Obama is stuck between a rock and a hard place as far as funding his policies is concerned. Should he take away funding from his domestic economic stimulus policy to fund our Afghan efforts or should the burden be placed on the millions of American citizens that are struggling in the midst of the very recession his domestic policy is attempting to eradicate? The concept of two presidencies that has always described the success of the president in each sphere now represents one of his most pressing dilemmas.