The Never-Ending Emergency
More than three years after the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration refuses to budget for ongoing costs, instead insisting on funding the war through "emergency" supplemental spending bills. The tactic, which is under attack by members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, makes fiscal responsibility all but impossible. None of the "emergency" money for Iraq expected to be requested is "counted in the budget deficit estimates that the administration routinely releases." Also, the funding is not "counted against any budget caps that Congress has set for itself to abide by throughout the year." Since March 2003, "Congress has approved about $250 billion in supplemental spending for the mission." Now, the administration wants more than $90 billion more to pay for operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and rebuilding on the Gulf Coast. The Senate is set to consider an even more bloated version of the request this week. In March, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), the chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, lamented, "The administration is running two sets of books here. ... There are two sets of books, and one is not subject to the budget controls." Rep. David Obey (D-WI), the ranking member on the House Appropriations Committee, echoed Gregg's concerns, arguing that emergency spending measures are "a good idea if you want to hide the cost of the war. It's a bad idea if you want to be able to offer an accounting of what our war costs are."

WAR COSTS SKYROCKET, EXCEED YEARLY COSTS OF VIETNAM: The massive cost of the supplemental spending bill reflects the escalating cost of the Iraq war. The yearly costs of operations in Iraq have risen steadily "from $48 billion in 2003 to $59 billion in 2004 to $81 billion in 2005 to an anticipated $94 billion in 2006." The costs of the Iraq war "are easily outpacing the $61 billion a year that the United States spent in Vietnam between 1964 and 1972, in today's dollars." According to the Congressional Research Service, "total assistance to Iraq thus far is roughly equivalent to the total assistance (adjusted for inflation) to Germany – and almost double that provided to Japan – from 1946 to 1952." (The Iraq war already exceeds the total cost of World War I in today's dollars.) One key factor driving the increase is the cost of "repairing and replacing equipment and developing new war-fighting material." In 2003, replacing worn equipment cost $2.4 billion. This year, it's expected to approach $30 billion.

FUNDING POLITICAL EMERGENCIES: Although it's billed as an "emergency" measure, the massive spending bill ignores critical short-term needs in favor of large, long-range projects favored by defense contractors. For example, the Senate version of the bill "would chop money for troops' night vision equipment and new battle vehicles." Meanwhile, the Senate added "$230 million for a tilt-rotor aircraft that has already cost $18 billion and is still facing safety questions." The aircraft, called the V-22 Osprey, has "been in development since the 1980s" and has "suffered numerous setbacks." Many believe the Osprey "will never be useful in combat." The Senate bill also includes "$228 million to procure seven C-17 Air Force cargo planes that can't be completed until 2008." That money is just a down payment; completing the planes "would take at least another $1.6 billion." [MORE from the American Progress Report]