Via Think Progress, the White House is threatening to furlough Defense Department workers unless Congress funds the war in Iraq with no strings attached for a complete year. They're claiming that they have to move money out of employee compensation to fund the war because the President's war funding request has not been enacted. It may be too early to call it, but this appears to be a transparently political move and just plain wrong. There is no need to furlough anyone yet, because Defense can take money out of their budget that's scheduled to be spent later in the year. They can use that money for the war instead of furloughing anybody. See this post, with links to reports by the Congressional Research Service, that lays out the options the Bush administration has for funding the war without a direct appropriation. Kudos to Rep. John Murtha for calling a spade a spade and not backing down (yet) when the administration uses scare-tactics and wraps itself in the flag.