120 billion/130 billion and government accounting tricks

[MSgt213]

It's driving me crazy when these half ass so call reporters can't figure out who's telling the truth about money spent in Iraq. I saw one on tonight who said Cheney said 120 to 130 Edwards said 200 billion and counting but Cheney was right.

No Cheney wasn't fucking right. First off the money issues isn't as black and white as someone filling out their check book at home. Simple lesson:

The administration requests money from the congress and congress appropriates it or gives it to them in the amount the administration asks or more or less.

In Iraq's case all money requested by the administration in excess of 200 billion has been appropriated by the congress to the administration for spending on Iraq.


First:
Iraq however is proving difficult to spend money on because it's hard to rebuild shit and start other projects when people are getting themselves blown up and their heads cut off. So a large portion of money is going unspent.

Second:
The government has several accounting tricks they use to make costs look low then they really are. Each branch of the 4 armed services already has pretty large operational budgets that the administration is going to require them to use when they first go to battle. The administration will then reimburse the services for the money they spent out of their operational budgets once they requests reimbursement and as the operational budget decreases to the point a unit can't pay it's bills. This operational budget is used to pay the light bills at bases, civilian employees and so on. The administration then can say that this money doesn't count money spent on Iraq. They can also order the services not to get stuff fixed or buy new needed stuff or they won't get reimburse for that but the administration gets to hold down costs. There are a lot of other tricks but, I think you get the idea.

Third:
You also need to be mindful of reimbursments that Halliburton and other companies make to the government when they are sanctioned by the government for rules violations and fraud. The administration will count that money back in even if they never actually receive it back for policital purposes.

Fourth:
There are lot of activities going on inside and outside of Iraq that are being paid for with taxpayer money that are not considered military or reconstruction and therefor not counted as money being spent on Iraq even though those activities are in direct support of the Iraq rebuilding effort.

200 billion spent is a modest estimate in my opinion.

[OneTwentyoNine]

1. Good point,but I thought they were talking money spent up till now..

Thats interesting,I'd like to see the replay. If so then Edwards was right if the Congress has given them 200 billion.

[MSgt213]

3. Well it's not that simple

They have spent in actual dollars todate 151 billion with the 25 billion emergency request for June. Bush held off asking for money earlier in the war because he didn't want to appear to be going over what he was. Congress is holding the additional money until after the election so GWB won't have spent in actual dollars 200 billion. So people won't be paid until then but the money will be spent now. It's all a bunch of tricks that would make Enron situp and take notes.

[bvar22]

2. Edwards could have hit this out of the park!

How many $Billions did the bush*/cheney* administration tell the American public the War on the Iraqi People would cost???


Answer: ZERO. This administration assured the American People that Iraqi Oil would pay for the WAR. This assertion was challenged by
MANY authoritative sources before the Invasion.