Obama's Use of Signing Agreements Draws Ire of House Democrat Leaders

Today, four House Democrat leaders, including Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Rep. David Obey (D-WI), released a strongly worded letter that expresses their displeasure with President Obama's use of a signing statement to reassert his right to ignore the conditions placed on the IMF funding for purposes of conducting foreign policy.

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Bush Signs War Supplemental, Cements Fiscal Legacy

Contrary to his assertion that he would "not accept a supplemental over $108 billion," President Bush signed a $257 billion war supplemental spending package on June 30. The bill will fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the remainder of the fiscal year (ending Sept. 30) and through the first several months of the next president's term.

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Fiscal Responsibility, War Critics Take a Back Seat in House War Supplemental

When the House Democratic leadership introduced a supplemental appropriations bill the week of June 16, chock-full of popular spending measures, it ensured easy passage of the $257 billion package. The Democrats and President Bush can each claim they won items in the negotiation over the bill: the Democrats won increased spending on domestic programs; Bush was able to kill any requirements for withdrawal of soldiers from Iraq. Yet the bill remained controversial because the Democrats refused to include fiscally responsible measures or accede to the opinion of 63 percent of Americans that soldiers should return home within two years.

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GAO Report Examines Overuse of Supplemental Spending

In a recently released report, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined ten years of supplemental spending (FY 1997-FY 2006) and found not only a five-fold increase in the amount of expenditures funded through the supplemental process, but also that procedures that enable legislative deliberation are bypassed when Congress funds government operations through supplemental spending. Supplemental spending has become an alternative funding process, parallel to the normal annual appropriations process. This allows certain expenditures to elide close congressional and public scrutiny and allows Congress to escape debate over federal funding priorities.

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GAO Report Highlights Troubling Trend in Supplemental Spending

A report recently released by the GAO indicates that with rising rates of supplemental appropriations comes decreasing budgeting transparency. Looking at supplemental requests - emergency and non-emergency - from 1997 to 2006, the report concludes:
To the extent possible, funds should be provided through the regular appropriations process to ensure that trade-offs are made among competing priorities, especially in an environment of increasingly constrained resources.

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Emergency War Spending Lacks Transparency, Increasingly Used for Non-Emergency Items

The Bush administration's emergency supplemental spending requests for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have lacked the transparency that normally accompanies the appropriations process, according to a new report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). In addition, the CBO war spending report, however constrained by available data, revealed the composition of the war funding requests has been evolving into broader Defense Department spending initiatives, such as acquiring next-generation aircraft and replacing aging aircraft.

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Congress Avoids Tough Questions of FY 2008 War Funding

President Bush and Congress continue to deny the fiscal realities of prosecuting two simultaneous wars that cost about $12 billion per month. By classifying the president's FY 2008 $193 billion war funding request an "emergency supplemental" and stifling discussion of war financing, Congress sidesteps the critical task of setting and adequately funding national priorities.

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Congress Set to Consider Largest Supplemental Funding Request in History

Congress will soon begin work on the largest supplemental funding bill ever requested — $99.6 billion — to continue to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with other items. The request was submitted to Congress by the president in early February, when the FY 2008 budget was released. If approved, this request would add $93.4 billion to the $70 billion Congress already appropriated for the "war on terror" in FY 2007 and bring the total cost of the wars to over $500 billion.

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War Supplemental: A Pentagon "Feeding Frenzy"

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal article ($) detailing the expected supplemental spending request for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is a perfect illustration of the problems that emergency funding bills present and why Congressional oversight of such spending is badly needed.

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Bush to Seek Massive War Supplemental - Congress Should Demand Explanation

About a month after signing a defense appropriations bill containing $70 billion extra-budgetary "bridge fund" to pay for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, President Bush may request yet more funding for the conflicts. The next request could be an eye-popping $130 billion.

BNA ($):

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