House lawmaker offers $50 billion war supplemental
As efforts and questions grew on Capitol Hill Wednesday about how the Defense Department will pay for increased military operations in Iraq, House Armed Services member Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., introduced a $50 billion fiscal 2004 supplemental spending bill to get the debate going.
Cooper said he hopes his bill will "light a fire under this Congress" to fund U.S. troops that could run out of money as early as this summer. "There is a groundswell of support forming for this. It's already becoming a red hot issue," he said.
Fellow Armed Services member Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., expressed support for Cooper's legislation, although she said she was concerned about the administration's practice of funding wartime costs through supplemental appropriations.
"The Pentagon has a $400 billion budget but they can't go to war," she said. "This is fiscally irresponsible to pay for it this way."
Bipartisan pressure is starting to build as well. House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., said Wednesday that he would support a wartime supplemental to pay for operations in Iraq, although he did not specify an amount, according to a committee spokesman.
Meanwhile, House Budget ranking member John Spratt, D-S.C., and Armed Services ranking member Ike Skelton, D-Mo., Wednesday wrote Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and OMB Director Bolten, expressing concern about the future availability of funds for troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"In view of recent increases in operational tempo in Iraq, we have renewed concerns that the 2004 supplemental funds will be insufficient to carry the Department of Defense through the remainder of the fiscal year," Spratt and Skelton wrote in identical letters to Rumsfeld and Bolten. That FY04 supplemental provided $87 billion.
"We are also concerned with the department's ability to execute operations in Iraq and Afghanistan while maintaining readiness in the event a supplemental is not approved until late in the second quarter of FY05," they added.
Their letter came on the same day Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers acknowledged that renewed violence in Iraq is pushing the cost of the war over budget. "When the service chiefs last talked about this, there was, I think, a $4 billion shortfall. We thought we could get through all of August. We'd have to figure out how to do September," he said.
The White House signaled Wednesday it would consider requesting a war supplemental if it determined that it was needed.
Given statements that the Pentagon might call up an additional 20,000 troops for service in Iraq, Skelton and Spratt asked for cost estimates and whether that total includes reservists who will be required.
During an appearance Wednesday, Myers told the House Armed Services Committee that extending the stay of 20,000 troops will cost $700 million more over three months.
In their letter, Spratt and Skelton cited a Congressional Research Service report noting that the obligation rate for Iraq, Afghanistan and other operations has been about $5.5 billion a month.
They asked Rumsfeld and Bolten to provide information on whether that same "burn rate" would continue throughout fiscal 2004 and for monthly obligation forecasts.
Also Wednesday, Spratt sent a letter to House lawmakers arguing that because of special procedural rules, the FY05 budget resolution would set the stage for legislation to increase the $7.4 trillion statutory debt limit without a House vote. The projected $703 billion increase amounts to "roughly $2,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States," Spratt wrote.