After a year of hard work and sacrifice in Iraq this year which helped turn things around in that country what is Congress giving in return to all those in and out of uniform to make it happen? Well their Christmas present from Reid and Pelosi will be pink slips under the tree:

Federal employees who work for the Army may get layoff notices before Christmas if Congress and the White House do not reach an accord on funding for the Iraq war, the Pentagon said yesterday.

The warning, posted near the top of the Defense Department’s Web site, was the latest in a series from Pentagon officials in recent weeks.

About 100,000 federal employees and an additional 100,000 contract workers are at risk of being sent home without pay in February and March if the Army and Marine Corps run short of money and have to reduce operations at their bases, according to the Pentagon.

…

Still, such warnings cannot be entirely dismissed. The 1995-96 budget impasse led to a shutdown of the government and, at one point, sent 800,000 federal employees home for three weeks during the December-January holiday season.

Yesterday, Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said “facts are the facts” and that military bases will have to cease operations, terminate contracts and send employees home without pay if a war-funding deal is not reached.

“Anyone who thinks that this is not a serious situation is simply misinformed or is ignoring the facts,” he said in an interview with the American Forces Press Service.

One guy claims the Pentagon should ask permission of Congress to access other funds:

Asked for his views on the furloughs, John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees, which represents thousands of Defense workers, yesterday said Secretary Robert M. Gates should “reconsider plans to lay off civilian employees in the midst of this political debate. The Defense Department should have alternatives for funding the war without laying off civilian employees — one alternative is to request authority from Congress to reprogram operation funds.”

Pure idiocy. If this is an option Congress should make the change NOW – without making the Pentagon beg. And in fact, since the Pentagon budget is one of the few this dysfunctional Congress was able to pass, they should have put the ability to switch funds into that bill knowing full well they were going to hold our military political hostage so they could get their mugs on the news programs.

As long as Congress fails to provide our troops on the front lines the funds they need the Pentagon will have to take it from other places in their budget and layoff people. That is a hard fact the Democrats WANT to have happen. They naively think America will thank them at the voting booth next fall for hurting all those American families so they can continue to pout and stomp their feet because they don’t have the political power to surrender Iraq to al-Qaeda and return it to the violent hell hole it was earlier this year.

Well if Congress is going to put coal in the stockings of all those families over the fact they cannot override a Presidential veto then the voters will be sending them a “Scrooge You Too” message come next November.