It’s been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

That pretty much sums up the Bush Administration’s approach to Iraq.

The President has made it clear that he intends to continue this war through the last day of his term. That is not acceptable.

This war started on George W. Bush’s watch, and it needs to end on his watch.

It would be a terrible mistake for this Congress to give the President additional billions in war funding without demanding a dramatically new direction in our policy.

It’s time to draw a meaningful line in the sand.

Any additional funding must be directly tied to a real plan that brings our troops home before President Bush leaves office. It should be tied to a real process of reconciliation in Iraq. And it should be paid for.

There is time for the President to work with us to end this war. And I hope he will do that. If not, Congress will have to exercise its constitutional power of the purse to change this policy.

Some of us will be introducing legislation to begin paying for this war through an additional surtax on all Americans, except our combat soldiers and their families.

No matter what you think of this war – and I believe it has been a terrible, terrible tragedy – we must not pass the costs on to our children and grandchildren.

The war in Iraq has been this generation’s mistake. It should not be the next generation’s burden.

The President talks a lot about sacrifice. On July 4th, he compared the Iraq war to the Revolutionary War, and he called for “more patience, more courage, and more sacrifice.”

The problem is, the only ones doing any sacrificing are the members of our military and their families.

No one else – certainly not the members of this Congress – are doing much sacrificing. We can begin to change that by stopping this practice of borrowing and piling the costs of the war onto the national debt.

We have the opportunity to end the President’s policy of debt and denial. We must seize that opportunity.