President Bush on Congressional war powers, in an interview with an incredulous Wall Street Journal editorial board (emphasis mine): WSJ: There's a lot of discussion in Congress about putting caps on troop levels or defunding or saying you can't deploy, as commander in chief, troops in Baghdad. Do you think Congress has the constitutional authority . . . GWB: I think they have the authority to defund, use their funding power . . . WSJ: You do?

The Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction just put out their semi-annual report on reconstruction. The report is on the web here, and it ain't pretty. The Washington Post has some lurid examples of the fraud and waste that the report exposes. And to think that just a few months ago the special inspector general's office was on the chopping block... One important note: it's tempting to see contracting waste and abuse as an Iraqi reconstruction problem, or a Halliburton problem, or even a defense problem. But really it's a contract administration and oversight problem.

The Democrats have unveiled their long-term CR proposal. Looks like they've made the best out of a bad sitution. From AP: Democrats unveiled a $463.5 billion catchall spending bill late Monday to boost funding for community health centers, lower-income college students and efforts to combat AIDS overseas — while sticking within the confines of President Bush's tight constraints for the ongoing budget year.

Next week, House appropriators plan to introduce the full-year extension of the continuing resolution that funds about half of all discretionary programs. The $463 billion bill may shuffle some money around to fill growing funding gaps, but some programs are bound to take hits under the tight budget cap that the last Congress imposed.