Subscribe"President George W. Bush soon will ask Congress for another $120 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan....That's enough to buy General Motors Corp. 33 times or Google almost four times, at current stock prices.
The vast majority of the money is for Iraq, where expenses are about $4.5 billion a month, according to administration officials. The U.S. campaign in Afghanistan is costing about $800 million a month.
Joel Kaplan, deputy director of the White House budget office, said Thursday that Bush would seek a quick $70 billion plus another $50 billion as part of the proposed fiscal 2007 federal budget that will go to Congress on Monday.
The Associated Press, citing Pentagon officials and documents, reported Thursday that the 2007 budget request will include $439.3 billion for the Defense Department, a nearly 5% increase over this year. That doesn't include the war requests."
"The business plan for the war was roughly as successful as the military plan," Mitch Daniels said in an interview last week before he left the administration after two years as budget director. "The projections look pretty darn good."
Those projections offer a window into the administration's prewar expectations. What kept war costs down:
The administration budgeted for the military buildup and 30 days of heavy fighting and bombing, followed by several months of skirmishes. Officials say the war lasted 26 days, from the launching of the first missiles March 19 until mid-April, when Iraqi political and religious leaders met with U.S. officials on forming an interim government.
Fewer expensive high-tech weapons were fired. For example, as many as 200 anti-missile Patriots were expected to be fired, but less than 25 were used. Each Patriot costs $2.3 million.
Planners had earmarked $489 million to put out as many as 500 oil well fires that Iraqis might ignite. Fewer than 10 wells were set ablaze, which cost about $5 million to extinguish the fires and repair damage.
Planners budgeted $593 million to care for as many as 2 million refugees, a problem avoided when urban combat was less extensive than expected. The refugee count was less than 100,000. In addition, $200 million was earmarked for emergency food supplies for Iraqis, but no major shortages occurred.
Troops are staying longer. The plan called for shipping more than 400,000 troops and equipment to the region and returning most of them within six months, at a round-trip cost of $30 billion. Now, at least 160,000 troops are staying in Iraq indefinitely, which means the cost of bringing them home can be deferred.
Bush said: “Keeping America competitive requires us to be good stewards of tax dollars.”
FACT– BUSH HAS PRESIDED OVER SUSTAINED, RECORD DEFICITS: In his 2002 State of the Union address, Bush promised that “our budget will run a deficit that will be small and short-term.” Bush has not kept his promise. The 2005 U.S. budget deficit was $319 billion, the “third-largest ever.” Goldman Sachs predicts $5 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years and Federal Chairman Alan Greenspan argued last April that “the federal budget is on an unsustainable path. … Unless that trend is reversed, at some point these deficits would cause the economy to stagnate or worse.” [Bush, 2002 State of the Union; Fox News, 1/25/06; Center for American Progress, State of the Economy, 1/26/06; Alan Greenspan, 4/21/05]
FACT — BUSH TAX CUTS WOULD WORSEN THE DEFICIT: The President’s tax cuts would only “expand the deficit over the next five years,” despite his promises to the contrary. [Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, Press Myths]
[On January 26, 2006], the Congressional Budget Office issued its ten-year budget outlook. According to their report, the 2006 federal budget deficit will be at least $337 billion, and deficits from 2006-15 will total $1.2 trillion. If we continue with President Bush’s economic policies the actual deficits will be much, much higher.The CBO report is here.
First, the CBO numbers exclude tens of billions of dollars in expected spending for Iraq and Katrina. Second, the long-term figures assume President Bush’s tax cuts, which overwhelming benefited the wealthy, will expire at the end of the decade. [more].
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posted by orthogonality at 10:15 AM on February 3, 2006