Democrats Plan to Tighten Reins on Iraq Spending

[cal04]

Frustrated by the Bush administration’s piecemeal financing of the Iraq war, Democrats are planning to assert more control over the billions of dollars a month being spent on the conflict when they take charge of Congress in January.

In interviews, the incoming Democratic chairmen of the House and Senate Budget Committees said they would demand a better accounting of the war’s cost and move toward integrating the spending into the regular federal budget, a signal of their intention to use the Congressional power of the purse more assertively to influence the White House’s management of the war.

The lawmakers, Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Representative John M. Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, said the administration’s approach of paying for extended military operations and related activities through a series of emergency requests had inhibited Congressional scrutiny of the spending and obscured the true price of the war.

“They have been playing hide-the-ball,” Mr. Conrad said, “and that does not serve the Congress well nor the country well, and we are not going to continue that practice.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/14/washington/14budget.html?hp&ex=1166072400&en=2f453180878e50b6&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[goforit]

1. Instead of Bush's 100 billion + they'll settle for a mere 99 billion.

[Monkeyman]

2. A how but looking for the 9 billion missing in Iraq

[More Than A Feeling]

3. I say we ought to eliminate the funding except what is required to get the troops out safely.

Ultimately, that's how this thing is going to end.

[Quantess]

4. K & R (n/t)

[Nickster]

5. OMG Accountability? Whatever shall we do! Quick, sell all the Halliburton stock! n/t