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: ... adding the war costs to the annual budget could carry risks for Democrats who want to write a spending plan that meets their priorities but eliminates the deficit in five years or so. Adding the war spending at the same time Democrats want to enforce “pay as you go” budget rules would require some of that spending to be made up by reductions elsewhere. No definition of PAYGO we've ever heard of would apply to even non-emergency discretionary war funding requests.