A story in today's New York Times entitled "Democrats Plan to Take Control of Iraq Spending" raises a number of interesting questions about budgeting war costs. How can you put such an unpredictable item as war costs into an annual budget? Should war funding requests go to appropriations or a substantive policy review committee such as armed services? What degree of congressional oversight is appropriate for an emergency supplemental spending request? Reporter Carl Hulse raises one issue, however, that is a complete red-ink-herring:

In an ironic and perplexing development today, the Bush Administration expressed dismay with yesterday's decision by incoming Congressional leaders to extend the FY2007 continuing resolution (CR) through the end of the current fiscal year. "The announcement from the incoming congressional majority is disappointing," said OMB Director Rob Portman, adding that “should there be a long-term continuing resolution, the administration would want to assure we maintain fiscal discipline and avoid gimmicks and unwarranted emergency spending.”

So the budget battle of 2006 will end with a whimper, not a bang. The new Democratic leadership wants to (CQ, $) extend the continuing resolution for the entire 2007 fiscal year, with some adjustments. Though not ideal, it's probably the best of all available options. It will:

• Impose a "moratorium" on earmarks, which could put the next Congress on a path toward more earmark reforms
• Remove a distraction for the new Congress, giving it more time to focus on an ambitious 100-hour agenda

On Saturday morning, the President signed an extension of a stopgap continuing resolution, making few changes to its destructive funding formula. It will last until February 15th. CQ ($) reports: The stopgap spending measure does not contain major deviations from the funding formula in the previous resolutions, despite lobbying by veterans’ groups for $3 billion in additional veterans’ health care money. The resolution calls for agencies that have not yet had their fiscal 2007 appropriations measures enacted to get the lowest of the House-passed, Senate-passed or previous year funding level.