Bush expected to detail Iraq reconstruction expenses

President Bush is expected to lay out further details of his plans for postwar Iraq occupation and reconstruction spending at a meeting this evening at the White House with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and other GOP leaders as pressure from Congress mounts to provide additional funds for the military and civilian authorities.

GOP aides said the meeting, which was called by the White House, would focus on pertinent issues facing lawmakers for the remainder of the session, with Iraq a major topic of discussion. The meeting comes as Secretary of State Colin Powell solicited support Wednesday for a new United Nations resolution to give the international community a larger role in postwar Iraq, and as the administration deliberates how large a supplemental spending package to send to Congress. GOP aides said they expected more details to come out after Wednesday's meeting at the White House.

One aide said "significant changes are under way" in the administration's request for occupation and reconstruction supplemental funding, expected to be in the tens of billions of dollars, and that it remained possible the White House would send up a stripped-down package in the $3 billion range for swift enactment. The funds could be included in one of the pending fiscal 2004 appropriations bills, such as the Defense or Legislative Branch measures, although that could raise objections from fiscal conservatives. Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., told reporters Wednesday more information was needed from the White House before Congress appropriates any more money.

"We're spending $1 billion a week; for how many weeks, how many billions will this continue?" Daschle asked. "It's important for all of us to have a better understanding of what [Bush] is asking." According to a report released Tuesday by CBO, under the current budget the Pentagon would have to begin decreasing active Army units in Iraq after March 2004.

Meanwhile, CBO Director Holtz-Eakin testified for the first time Wednesday before the Senate Budget Committee since the release last month of CBO's new deficit forecast-$480 billion in fiscal 2004 and totaling $1.4 trillion between fiscal 2004-2008. Holtz-Eakin said his estimates assume Congress will approve $80 billion in supplemental appropriations annually, including funds for Iraq occupation and reconstruction, similar to the fiscal 2003 Iraq supplemental enacted in April.

Senate Budget ranking member Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said CBO's numbers should "send alarm bells sounding throughout Washington, really throughout the country, that our course is totally unsustainable."

But Budget Chairman Don Nickles, R-Okla., said revenues have gone down from $2 trillion in 2000 to $1.8 trillion this year due to the weak economy, and that spending has dramatically increased, leading to the record deficit level. He argued that the tax cuts have helped send the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 7,500 in March to 9,500 now. "That's a big change, and in large part a significant contributor to that change was through tax cuts," he said.