Last month, we reported in Supplemental 2.0 -- Short-Term War Funding? on a legislative strategy proposed by Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), seconded by House Appropriations chair David Obey (D-WI), to approve funding for soldiers only through July, but without any deployment timetables or restrictions in Supp. 1.0. We noted the White House would likely take a dim view of the idea. Indeed it now has; the NYT has WH spokesman Tony Snow saying yesterday that a short-term bill "provides a kind of uncertainty that really is not helpful to commanders."

FedTimes on appropriations... Capitol Hill watchers caution agency leaders to expect more hearings, more scrutiny, less predictability and longer wait times for their 2008 budgets. "The one thing that is clear is that departments and agencies are going to be held much more accountable and forced to disclose a lot of information that they haven't previously disclosed, and they are going to be punished if they don't disclose," said Scott Lilly, a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress.

Responding to the new CAP anti-poverty plan, the folks at Inclusionist.org have started up an interesting debate on how to talk about, think about, and address poverty. This post should get you caught up. Call me a kool-aid drinker, but I'm taken in by the Inclusionist people. I like the way they think, perhaps more so than the way they name things. I mean, the term "inclusion" just sounds too social, when we're really talking about pocketbook, security, and opportunity issues. Their work's cut out for them on that front, if they ever want the term and their definition of it to become mainstream.

This today from CTJ: Congress Considers Taking Money from Social Security to Extend Tax Breaks