Congress is currently considering President Bush’s request for $87 billion for the ongoing war in Iraq. Last week, the House and Senate each approved legislation to cover the cost of occupying and rebuilding Iraq in 2004, but the bills contained a number of significant differences. Congress is currently working to draft a version of this legislation that both bodies can agree to.

President Bush wants to pass the burden of paying for the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq –estimated at between $238 billion and $418 billion – on to our children in the form of a larger national debt. The larger budget deficits that this increased borrowing would produce would also make it much more difficult to enact a Medicare prescription drug benefit, fix our outdated electric utility network, and invest in our children’s education.

A lot of Americans, myself included, are asking why we are being asked to forego rebuilding America in order to rebuild Iraq – and why we aren’t getting help from our “Coalition of the Willing” allies in paying for it?

Let me make one thing clear. I’m not suggesting that we cut and run. We need to support our troops, and we have to win the peace in Iraq. Nevertheless, I couldn’t support the President’s request as currently structured.

When you compare the coalition that President Bush’s father put together with his son’s “Coalition of the Willing,” an obvious question arises. Why did the first Persian Gulf War cost our country only $10 billion while the recent war has a price tag – so far – of $166 billion?

The obvious answer is that the first President Bush put together a real coalition that supported our policies and contributed most of the money needed to pay for that war. The “Coalition of the Willing” assembled by the current President Bush, in striking contrast, is a paper tiger. Practically no other country has provided any significant support for this effort. And yet, we clearly need foreign troops and financial support if we are to be successful in creating a stable democratic Iraq.

I opposed the war resolution last year because in the absence of an imminent threat to our country, I believed that the United States should have pursued a multilateral approach to deal with our concerns about weapons of mass destruction by giving inspections more time and building a bigger international coalition. It’s clear now that Iraq posed no imminent threat to our country and that we could have safely pursued this approach – which would have saved hundreds of American lives and billions of dollars.

Instead, President Bush’s approach alienated many potential allies and made them unwilling to help us rebuild Iraq. Now Americans are paying the price.

President Bush also did a poor job of putting together his plan for rebuilding Iraq. The Bush Administration has proposed spending the American taxpayers’ hard-earned money on some of the most outrageous “reconstruction” projects one could imagine – creating a zip code system for Iraq, building luxury prisons, subsidizing MBA classes, building public housing and restoring Iraqi marshlands (things he would never support in our country), and funding a witness protection program.

Expecting Congress to approve such a request is an insult to every American. We have to support our troops, but tying reconstruction money in with the money for our troops without the necessary accountability would be a disservice to the entire nation and a dereliction of Congress’s responsibility. Moreover, we should provide our reconstruction assistance to Iraq in the form of loans and loan guarantees.

The United States must do a better job of getting the international community involved in rebuilding Iraq. That means giving the United Nations a bigger role in rebuilding Iraq – which is desirable in any case. President Bush got us into an unnecessary and expensive war, alienated most of our potential allies, and failed to develop a viable exit strategy for our troops. I believe that the United States must now bring other countries into the reconstruction process and make certain that our reconstruction aid is spent wisely.

Finally, to the extent that U.S. taxpayers must foot a share of the bill, we should pay for it by postponing or repealing the President’s recent tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans. I feel strongly that the best long-term interests of the United States are not served by passing the cost of paying for this war on to our children.