http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_money_021104,00.html
This is today's latest in "Slam Bush 10 way's from Sunday."
I would love to see the media pick this up! It would do so well to combat those Neo-Con cries of not supporting the troops by Voting against the $87B spending. I'm talking in reference to Kerry of Course.
The military will have no money to pay for the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for three months beginning Oct. 1 because the White House is declining to ask Congress for funding until December or January, well after the presidential election.
President Bush is not asking Congress for a 2005 supplemental until December or January, according to Pentagon comptroller Dov Zakheim.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters Tuesday the decision not to request a supplemental rested with the White House. He could not explain why the administration would allow a three-month gap in funding the war on terror, ostensibly its top priority.
Rumsfeld and Zakheim have said the delay has to do with wanting to wait to get better detail on what the spending needs will be.
Zakheim said the services can cover the gap by shifting funding around in regular budgets until the White House requests additional money.
"As you move into the fiscal year, Oct. 1, November, December, January, you're going to know an awful lot more than you know today in February," Rumsfeld said Tuesday.
The White House had sufficient detail and foresight last year to request $87 billion for the coming fiscal year on Sept. 7, 2003.
That date however, coincided with a precipitous drop in President Bush's approval ratings, according to polling data from the Gallup Organization.
Between Aug. 25 and 26, Bush had an approval rating of 59 percent. In polls conducted Sept. 8-10, it had dropped to 52 percent. Less than two weeks later, Bush's approval rating was at 50 percent -- the lowest ever in his three years in office. His approval rating bounced back to 63 percent immediately after Saddam Hussein was captured in Iraq in December, but dipped to 49 the last week of January. It has risen back to 52 percent this week.
With early polls suggesting likely Democratic candidate Sen. John Kerry and President Bush very close in approval ratings, the White House may not want to risk a drop related to asking for additional funding so close to the November election.
If the current spending rate continues in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon is likely to need around $50 billion for military operations alone.
Now who is playing politics with the Military, with National Security, and with the Budget???
