Too funny. Doesn't bode well for the Preznit's budget when even Rethuglicans notice the clumsy slight of hand. Oh right, they proclaim(ed) themselves the party of fiscal rectitude, back in the days when they were the minority party.
Bush supplemental irks some conservatives:
The budgeting process and Bush’s requests for money for nonemergency programs have irritated some conservatives who want offsetting spending cuts and who objected to sending $200 million to the Palestinian Authority, and a $600 million increase in aid to countries hit by the tsunami last December also concerns Republican lawmakers.
“We are developing offsets and plan to ask the White House to recommend offsets,” said Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), chairman of the Republican Study Committee (RSC). “And we reserve right to offer amendments on the House floor to strike [spending] outright.”
Meanwhile, Democrats plan to use the bill to question Bush’s strategy in Iraq and complain that some of the spending, such as tsunami relief, was included only to make it politically difficult to oppose the bill.
and continuing the giggles:
Both Republican and Democratic aides said that requests for $780 million for U.N. peacekeeping missions, $200 million for costs incurred by coalition partners in Iraq and Afghanistan, $55 million for a war-crimes tribunal in Sudan, several billion dollars to restructure three Army brigades in Iraq and $658 billion to build a new embassy compound in Baghdad should have been included in Bush’s fiscal year 2006 budget request.“It’s a little frustrating when the White House sends a budget one week ago that did not include funding foreign aid for Sudan and a week later it’s included in the supplemental,” Pence said. “We will do what we can to bring discipline to the process.”
Rep. John Kline (R-Minn.), who visited Iraq last month, said, “Our preference is going to back to that practice [of including spending cuts]. We should start putting money in budget for these emergencies. We know they’re coming, and we ought to put them in the budget.”
