President George Bush is continuing his piecemeal approach to funding U.S. war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, despite rebukes by Congress including last year's stinging one by Sen. Robert Byrd (D-WV). On Feb. 17, Bush sent another supplemental request of $72.4 billion for war funding for the remainder of this fiscal year, leading critics to note that it is impossible to know how much the war efforts are really costing. The latest request from the White House puts the total amount requested for FY 2006 at $115.3 billion, more than double the amount the president included in his most recent budget request for FY 2007, which was only $50 billion. Unlike previous years, the president actually did include funding in his 2007 budget request for the wars, but given the historical rate of spending by the Defense Department over the last three years, the request is less than half of what will likely be necessary. By continuing to omit the true expected costs of the wars, the administration's budget projections remain significantly skewed and the president continues to be dishonest with both Congress and the American people about not only the cost of the wars, but also the nation's overall fiscal outlook. This sentiment has been shared by members of Congress of late. On Feb. 8, two days after the president's FY 2007 budget proposal was released, Budget Committee member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) and Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) sent a letter to Budget Committee chairman Jim Nussle (R-IA) asking him to honor his public support for having a "realistic and honest [picture of the] long-term funding for the wars." Their letter refers to a statement Nussle made at the opening of a 2003 hearing on budgeting practices for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which included the following entreaty:

Can we continue to fund our war efforts on this type ad-hoc basis? I think most of us would agree that we cannot. This Committee - and this Congress - has to have a solid plan - a blueprint - to set our priorities for the year. And to do that, we must be able to gather whatever information is needed to put together a credible and responsible budget for this nation.

House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member David Obey (D-WI) was equally frustrated with the president's seemingly disjointed plan. In a statement, Obey explained that, in the nearly three years since the start of the Iraq war, Congress has yet to receive accurate information about the expected duration or cost of the war. "Hundreds of billions of dollars later," Obey went on to say, "the administration continues to hide the war's full costs with piecemeal requests so that they don't have to take responsibility for its impact on the budget and can continue down a fiscally reckless path." Since the beginning of the conflicts, Congress has approved $334.1 billion for the two wars with another $115.3 billion likely to be approved before September. Unfortunately, Congress is no closer to a solid plan from this administration than when Nussle expressed the need for it in late 2003. As the stonewalling continues, the administration's lack of detail on the long-term costs appears to be sparked less by an unwillingness to share its plans with Congress, and more by the reality that the administration does not have a plan at all.