Congressman Raul Grijalva has joined with three colleagues—Reps. Michael Honda, John Conyers and Alan Grayson—to issue a challenge on funding for the war in Afghanistan:

It is disingenuous to say the president’s request for more Afghan war funding is an “emergency” supplemental. The only “emergency” is this: In funding the longest war in history, we are forcing America to borrow more from China, expanding the deficit, increasing wasteful government spending, undermining our budgetary process, risking Social Security and cementing governmental debts that military leaders call our number one national security threat.

The Iraq Study Group argued in 2006 that the government should stop funding the wars with emergency supplemental appropriation bills that avoid budgetary restrictions. Last year, President Obama pledged to stop these off-budget gimmicks to hide the cost of war. Last week, Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, cited debt as the number one threat to America’s national security. This week, Republican leader John Boehner stated, “We need to look at the American people and explain to them that we're broke,” proposing to cut Social Security to pay for the war.

Our challenge: if you oppose deficit spending, debt dependency on China, cuts to Social Security, and are concerned about a debt-threat to our national security, then oppose this supplemental war funding request.