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Monday, October 22, 2007
Bush Officially Requests $45.9 Billion for War
Today, the president formally requested funds that Defense Secretary Robert Gates was sent to the Hill in September to retrieve.
This request brings total FY 2008 supplemental war funding to $196.4 billion. It is the latest in a series.
According to CQ($), House Appropriations Chair David Obey (D-WI) has no plans to move war spending legislation until the president makes changes to his war plan, but that doesn't really matter because the Pentagon's well is far from dry.
Congress is not expected to pass a new war funding measure this calender year, although it will have to provide some additional money. Earlier this month, House Appropriations Committee Chairman David R. Obey, D-Wis., said he will not move a war funding bill out of his committee in 2007, saying the president must change his policy in Iraq before Obey will advance the bill.
Congress could allow the Pentagon to borrow war funds from its regular fiscal 2008 spending bill, once that measure is enacted, or it could attack a few months' war funding to some other appropriations measure in the weeks between now and adjournment.
Posted by Craig Jennings
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