The entire war was basically fought under the
authorization of the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which, while it passed by a combined vote
of 504 - 2, the members of Congress likely did not envision they were signing off on a
nine year war with nearly 60,000 American deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars in
expenditures. If they had, they probably would have voted
differently.
At the time the War Powers Act passed in 1973,
the Vietnam War was very unpopular and elected officials were trying to appear against
it as well, even when many of them had already supported it with funding for
years.
Korea and Vietnam also set a dangerous precedent we
still live with that allows Presidents to engage us in wars without exit strategies
without the Constitutional permission of a formal declaration of war, essentially
eroding the Legislative Branch's power.
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