Halt, Big Spenders

It was the Democratic Congress' dipping into Social Security funds that really rocketed the growth of federal spending; it's been the use of "emergency spending" by the Bush era GOP Congress that expedited the flight of billions and billions of dollars into Iraq. According to Roxana Tiron at The Hill, that latter bit of Congressional chicanery may be coming to an end.

An increasing number of lawmakers have said lately that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are no longer unexpected expenses and that their costs should be calculated as part of the regular Pentagon budget.

Defense authorizers in particular have grown frustrated at the ballooning wartime funding because they were not able to exercise any scrutiny over it. Congress last month passed its ninth supplemental spending bill since 2001.

Sen. John McCain is involved, so this might turn out to be one of those quick headline-grabbing moves that never comes to fruition. But the fact that anyone at all is discussing it indicates that congressmen are 1)increasingly frustrated with the war in Iraq and groping for a way to show it and 2)hearing from their constituents about sky-high federal spending, and scared enough to act.