$175 Billion Toward $3 Trillion War
 
Date: Wed, 14 May 2008 14:49:25 -0500 (CDT)


Institute for Public Accuracy
915 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045
(202) 347-0020 * http://www.accuracy.org * ipa@accuracy.org
___________________________________________________

	PM Wednesday, May 14, 2008

	$175 Billion Toward $3 Trillion War

The House of Representatives is expected to have a full chamber debate 
on the war supplemental bill on Thursday.

THEODORE LOWI, tjl7@cornell.edu, 
http://falcon.arts.cornell.edu/Govt/faculty/Lowi.html
    Lowi is professor of American Institutions at Cornell University and 
author of several books including "The End of Liberalism." He said 
today: "Supplementals are supposed to be for real emergencies -- like 
Katrina. The war supplementals are a way for Bush to attempt to hide the 
costs and implications of the war in Iraq. Obviously, Bush deserves the 
blame for much of how the Iraq war has gone, but Congress has gone 
along, funding the war. The Republicans have gotten tremendous mileage 
out of accusing anyone opposed to the war of not supporting the 
soldiers. The power of the purse -- like free speech and privacy -- has 
been withering away. Congress has diddled around with little things, but 
has fundamentally acquiesced.
    "This will also substantially limit the choices of the next 
president. The candidates have really done a disservice, indicating that 
they will be able to change course when their power will in fact be very 
limited."

LINDA BILMES, via Jessica Donovan or Michael Johnson, 
ljb@ksg.harvard.edu, jessica_donovan@ksg.harvard.edu, 
http://ksghome.harvard.edu/~lbilmes/index.htm
    Bilmes is a former Assistant Secretary and Chief Financial Officer 
of the U.S. Department of Commerce. A professor at the Kennedy School of 
Government at Harvard University, she co-authored "The Three Trillion 
Dollar War." Bilmes said: "There is no such thing as a free lunch and 
there is no such thing as a free war. After five years of war, 4,000 
[U.S.] deaths, 60,000 injuries, $600 billion spent so far (with the 
price tag expected to reach $3 trillion once we add veterans costs, 
military reset, interest on the debt, and economic losses), the U.S. 
public is waking up to the fact that the war is hurting the economy."

TRAVIS SHARP, tsharp@armscontrolcenter.org, 
http://www.theiraqinsider.blogspot.com
    Sharp is the military policy analyst at the Center for Arms Control 
and Non-Proliferation. He writes the "Iraq Insider" blog and is closely 
following the supplemental spending process. He said today: "If the 
pending $175 billion super supplemental is signed into law, the U.S. 
government will have approved $650 billion for Iraq since 2003. The 
current veterans' education package under consideration will cost $52 
billion over the next decade, only 8 percent of the total cost of the 
Iraq war to date."

Background: From Foreign Policy in Focus: "The Iraq Supplemental: A 
Three Ring Circus" http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5211

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

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