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Obama Seeks $75.5 Billion in
Emergency War Funding for Rest of Fiscal Year
President Obama will seek $130 billion in war funding for fiscal 2010 in
addition to $75.5 billion more this fiscal year.
FoxNews. Thursday, February 26, 2009. President Obama is seeking an
additional $75.5 billion in war funding for rest of the fiscal year, and
another $130 billion for fiscal 2010, as he seeks to draw down troop
levels in Iraq and build up the military presence in Afghanistan.
The president unveiled a $3.6 trillion overall spending plan for next
year on Thursday, detailing plans to commit billions of dollars to
health care expansion and provide another costly backstop for the ailing
financial industry.
The fiscal 2010 request for war spending would be in addition to the
proposed $534 billion defense budget for that year.
The supplemental request for fiscal 2009 brings the total war
supplemental for the year to $141.5 billion, over that year's baseline
budget of $513 billion. The federal budget year lasts from Oct. 1-Sept.
30.
Obama has said he will no longer hide the full costs of the war, as he
accused his predecessor of doing, and he did include a special category
for war spending in material released to support his budget request for
next year.
In years past, the Bush administration separated its spending for things
like weapons and military pay from the cost of the wars. It was
something of an accounting trick that some Democrats grumbled made it
hard to compute the true costs of the unpopular war in Iraq.
Obama's budget summary doesn't list the projected costs for each war
individually, and a defense official said the $130 billion war request
also includes some costs for other overseas spending such as military
help in Pakistan.
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell revealed Wednesday that the
administration would seek the additional funding, and that a war
supplemental for fiscal 2010 is likely. He said the Pentagon will try to
include all "predictable" war costs in the base budget and wants to
eventually move away from supplemental budgets, but in fiscal 2010 there
will be costs "above and beyond" early estimates.
President Bush requested $3.1 trillion for the U.S. government in fiscal
year 2009. The House passed $410 billion in spending on Wednesday to
wrap up the unfunded portions of the 2009 budget. It heads to the Senate
next week.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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