Supplemental Spending Analyses

May 4, 2009

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President Obama’s 2009 supplemental spending request to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is currently before Congress. The House Appropriations Committee will “mark up” (finalize its version) of a war funding bill at a committee hearing on May 7th. The full House will likely vote on the bill the following week. The objective is to have the bill finalized and to Obama for signature by Memorial Day.

President Obama is seeking an additional $75.8 billion in war funds for this fiscal year. It is possible that Congress will add to this amount before final passage. If Congress enacts Obama’s request, total war spending will come to $144.6 billion for Fiscal Year 2009 (which ends on September 30, with Fiscal Year 2010 beginning on October 1). This compares to the $186 billion war spending in 2008. Obama’s proposed war budget for 2010 is $130 billion.

April 29, 2008

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According to an April 29 article on CQ Politics, the House will likely vote on a new Iraq – Afghanistan war supplemental during the week of May 5, with Senator Harry Reid stating that he wants the Senate to vote on the bill prior to Memorial Day.

Details of the supplemental are being closely guarded by the Democratic party leadership. However, the supplemental is based upon President Bush’s request for an additional $108 billion in supplemental funding for the Iraq – Afghanistan war for the current fiscal year (FY 2008, which ends on September 30, 2008). Of this amount, $102 billion will be for the military.

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February 14, 2008

Congress will soon begin consideration of an additional $102.4 billion in supplemental funding for the Iraq – Afghanistan wars. On February 13, Representative Jack Murtha (Chair of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee) announced that he intends to produce a final version of the latest 2008 Iraq – Afghanistan war supplemental spending bill by the end of February. After this it will be considered by the full House Appropriations Committee and then go to the full floor of the House for a vote. The Senate similarly is beginning to develop its version of the latest war supplemental spending bill.

The House bill will be developed behind closed doors. No hearings are scheduled between now and the end of February to discuss the bill in the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee. It is not known when the final war supplemental spending bill will be made available to the public. It may well end up that the final supplemental spending bill is presented as a “fait accompli”—an accomplished act—on the floors of the House and of the Senate only hours before the vote is to take place. In May 2007, the final spending bill was not released to the public until about 6 a.m. on the morning of the vote. In December 2007, the funds for the Iraq war were tucked into a Senate amendment to an omnibus appropriations bill—an amendment available to the public only after it was submitted on the floor of the Senate by Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

It is also highly unlikely that any language on partial troop withdrawal will be included in the supplemental spending bill this time around. Representative Murtha stated that he will recommend the inclusion of some form of withdrawal language in the bill, though stopped short of stating partial withdrawal language will in fact be included in the bill. However, such language was stripped out of the final version of war supplemental spending bills that passed Congress in May 2007 and in December 2007.

Therefore, it is critical that phone calls and lobbying—both legal and extralegal civil disobedience—be on-going at the offices of Representatives and Senators with the message being simple: Vote against any additional funds for the Iraq war.

You can contact your Representative and Senators via the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121.

You can find out your Representative’s and Senators’ direct contact information by visiting the website of Contacting Congress

Following is a “Question and Answer” piece on the status of the Iraq – Afghanistan war supplemental as well as two charts that summarize the components of the war spending request.

By Jeff Leys
Co-Coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence
jeffleys@vcnv.org
May 8, 2007

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MAY 17: Audio Discussion of Iraq and Afghanistan Supplemental Spending 2008

Don’t lose the forest for the trees.

Congress is now considering President Bush’s request for an additional $145 billion to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan through September 30, 2008. The House Armed Services Committee is including these funds in the Defense Authorization Bill for Fiscal Year 2008, which runs from October 1, 2007 to September 30, 2008. Of this, $142 billion will be for the military and $3 billion will be for the State Department.

President Bush submitted this request on February 5, the same date on which he requested $93 billion for the wars for this year’s budget and $482 billion for the regular baseline military budget for FY 2008 (a 62% increase over the baseline military budget in 2001).

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March 19, 2007

“We don’t have the votes,” intones David Obey as he shepherds though the House the supplemental spending bill that provides another $100 billion or so for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Obey’s protestations to antiwar protesters are an understandable figleaf covering his continued support for the war. After all, he has voted in favor of all prior supplemental spending bills, excepting the October 2003 bill which actually included funds for reconstruction purposes in Iraq.

Of course, Obey, Murtha, et. al. offer the benefit of “oversight”. With the Democrats back in power, Congress will provide “oversight” to this war while tens of thousands of Iraqis and hundreds of U.S. soldiers continue to be killed.

February 27, 2007

Editorial Note: Shortly after the following was written, reports broke in the media that Democratic party leadership in the House is backing away from Murtha’s proposals on supplemental spending. In its place is the proposal that the full $93 billion will be approved by the House. This proposal would require that the President issue a waiver and notify Congress of any units deployed to Iraq which do not meet certain standards. Rather than acting to end the Iraq war, it would seem that the Democratic party leadership is playing political games with the lives of U.S. soldiers and Iraqi citizens.]

Democrats who have staked out an “antiwar” position, whether consistently over the years or more recently, are beginning to join with Congressman John Murtha in placing limited conditions upon the supplemental spending request submitted by President Bush to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the so-called global war on terror. Even Representatives who have consistently voted against prior supplemental spending requests for the war and who have consistently co-sponsored legislation aimed at ending the war or placed restrictions on the waging of the war are showing indications that they will support a Murtha formulated version of the supplemental spending bill. The danger is therefore very real that fewer votes will be cast against the supplemental spending bill than were cast against prior supplemental spending bills.

January 4, 2007
Compiled by Neil Brideau
Voices for Creative Nonviolence
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Q: What is a Fiscal Year?
Q: How does the U.S. government set its budget for a fiscal year?
Q: What is a Supplemental Spending Bill?
Q: What will this supplemental spending bill cover?
Q: Why is this year’s supplemental spending bill so big?
Q: Why isn’t this request factored into a regular appropriations bill?
Q: What type of oversight have these bills had in the past?
Q: Who cares if the process is flawed? We are in the middle of a war, we need more funding, don’t we?
Q: But the Democrats have control of Congress now, they’ll put a stop to this, right?
Q: Isn’t voting against the supplemental spending bill voting against the troops?

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Download PDF Chart of War Spending Growth from 2004 to 2007

$99.7 billion dollars. That’s what the Pentagon is seeking in additional “supplemental” war funding for 2007—for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for the so-called “global war on terror”.

The Pentagon submitted this request to the White House on December 7. After reviewing the request, the White House will submit a new supplemental spending bill to Congress in early 2007—most likely during the first week of February.

May 4, 2006

Today, on a vote of 77 to 21, the U.S. Senate approved the $108 billion supplemental spending bill. This bill includes $67.5 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

So-called “antiwar” Senators again voted for the war funds. Fiscal hawks like John McCain voted against the supplemental spending bill.

The bill now goes to a House - Senate Conference Committee to resolve differences between the bill passed in the House and the bill passed in the Senate.