By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t Report
Monday 23 April 2007
Nearly half of the $94 billion in emergency funding President Bush says Congress needs to immediately make available to continue to pay for the warsin Iraq and Afghanistan would actually be used to finance non-urgent items related to the so-called "longer war on terror."
The revelation once again casts further doubt on the president's assertion that the Army will run out of funding this month for US troops fighting in those regions, according to a report issued by the nonpartisan research arm of Congress. The president and officials at the Department of Defense appear to beusing a bulk of the emergency spending request sent to Congress more than two months ago to pay for items unrelated to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
And moreover, using the emergency budget request to escape Congressionalscrutiny to finance measures deemed controversial, according to the report,"Fiscal Year 2007 Supplemental Appropriations for Defense, Foreign Affairs,and Other Purposes," released earlier this month by the CongressionalResearch Service. "When the president submits an emergency supplemental request, theauthorizing committees are bypassed," said Ryan Alexander, president ofTaxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan federal budget watchdog group."The request goes directly to the appropriations committees, and they arepressured by the need to act quickly so that troops in the field do not runout of funds. The result is a spending bill that passes Congress withperfunctory review."
"Since 9/11, Congress has passed at least one emergency bill to coverwar costs, making supplemental spending the method of choice for themajority of funding for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the war onterror," Alexander added. "Of the $510 billion spent thus far, $331.8billion (about 65 percent) has come from supplemental spending legislation.If the so-called "bridge fund" included in the fiscal year 2007 appropriations bill is included, the total rises to $401.8 billion. Thatmeans nearly 80 percent of all funding for these wars was the result ofemergency and supplemental spending, not regular budgetary means."
The total funds requested by the Defense Department for emergencyspending is $163.4 billion, including $70 billion already provided as partof DOD's regular fiscal year appropriations plus a new supplemental requestof $93.4 billion. More on Jason's article.
3 comments:
That would be funny if we only gave the money needed for the military and not for the contract worriors who run around without any rules.
I was listening to Murtha tell of all the money that was approved for soldiers, for medical (this was a big area), for equipment, etc. Summing it up but they refuse to fund the Civil war because it a no win situation and Iraq will never be able to take care of things as long as we are there prolonging it
And more and more lies by the Gerbil on the funding of Iraq, unaccountable and waste money, and the Gerbil's purpose of keep the purse on a leash will come out.
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