Why are Iraq and Afghanistan still funded with EMERGENCY appropriations?

[jtrockville]

Why is the Iraq occupation and the Afghanistan war still being funded with emergency supplemental appropriations? We're in our 6th year. Isn't it time we fund these ventures with planned appropriations?

[shraby]

1. Might have something to do with keeping

the wars off the budget...therefore it doesn't show up in the bottom line.

[onethatcares]

2. cause we don't have any more money,

it's like going to the Chinese for a payday loan, I wonder how many times we missed the payback date. Hang in there, it's gonna get worse, not only that, chimpy can point fingers and say, "bad Democrats, won't support the troops", while those that don't keep up with current events have no clue how far in debt we, as a country, are.

[Igel]

3. They don't plan that far out.

"Emergency" just means "not part of the budget as submitted, or amended by Congress".

This year's defense budget was submitted over a year ago, January or February '07.

* and the DOD weren't going to venture a prediction as to how much money they'd want/need/ask for for December '07 in Iraq or Afghanistan when they submitted the '08 budget. And they certainly weren't going to speculate on what they'd need for August '08. The proposed '09 defense budget was out in February '08. You want them to commit to funds for June '09? Nah. I wouldn't want it projected that far in advance, and wouldn't want to predict that far in advance.

Moreover, Congress wasn't about to pass a budget for a full year, even if presented. It would make for nice PR about the cost of the war, but by having 2-3 of these per year, you get three opportunities to make the media circuit, saying how much it costs, and that many times a year to try to score political points.

It's "off budget" in the sense that it usually doesn't ding Congress' spending plans, either, something they like. They have, or had, pay-go for non-emergencies. This way they budget every cent, and then say, "Oh, my, did we leave off the $200 billion for this? Bad *, making us cause a deficit--well, not our fault."