CS Monitor

In their zeal to cut government spending, Republicans in Congress have been quoting the Constitution and hacking away at funds for National Public Radio, which saved $5 million.

But if those same Republicans had seriously honored the Constitution 10 years ago, they might have saved $4-to-6 trillion.

That’s the total estimated cost of America’s wars in Iraq and Afghanistan – wars that Congress putatively authorized but never formally declared. Article I, Section 8, is explicit: “The Congress shall have Power to ... declare War.” But to its discredit, Congress has failed the American people for more than half a century on this score.

And now it’s happening again, as the US began bombing Libya without a congressional declaration – or even a single hearing or debate.

It’s all well and good for tea party sloganeers and their Republican allies to gripe about budget deficits. But it smacks of political cowardice when they neglect to tell the American people that our habit of fighting undeclared wars may be our costliest government “program” of all.

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Video - Dennis Kucinich with Mike Huckabee - Apr. 2, 2011