The Discipline of War

Submitting his first bill for the war in Iraq yesterday, President Bush warned:

Business as usual on Capitol Hill can't go on during this time of war. And by that I mean the supplemental [appropriation bill] should not be viewed as an opportunity to add spending that is unrelated, unwise, and unnecessary. Every dollar we spend must serve the interests of our nation, and the interests of our nation in this supplemental is to win this war and to be able to keep the peace.

Once the war is over, presumably, Congress can stop worrying about using tax dollars to "serve the interests of our nation" and get back to its usual pattern of "unwise" and "unnecessary" spending.

Comments

[Brian]

Brilliant post, Jacob...

[Keith]

Every buck congress allocates that the administration didn't ask for is, by definition, unrelated and unnecessary. Unwise is a value judgement; Mr. Bush is welcome to his opinion.

Oh, those tax-and-spend Republican legislators!

[Warren]

Of course there are those that think the whole supplemental appropriation bill is unwise and unnecessary. Not to mention, un-sufficient?, un-honest?, un-credible? Well it's unbelievable (yeah that's the ticket), no way they bring this war in for under 100 gigabucks. And that's just the killing and destroying part. Total price tag, including options, fees and registration is gonna be more? my guess is a lot more.

[kim]

what "tax" dollars?

[Lefty]

Here's an article on one thing left out of this budget - money to finish the 911 investigation.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34690-2003Mar26.html

Kenny Starr spent 80 million dollars to come up with a blow job but Bush doesn't want to spend 14 million to get to the bottom of the deaths of 3,000 people.