John Spratt: “Mr. Chairman, my colleague calls this a wartime budget, but everyone should understand there is nothing in this budget…”

“Mr. Chairman, my colleague calls this a wartime budget, but everyone should understand there is nothing in this budget to pay for the war in Iraq that is now underway. There is not even anything in this budget to pay for the war against global terrorism which is being waged in places like Afghanistan. The administration deliberately omitted any provision for those costs in this budget for various reasons. They claim that they could not estimate accurately what those costs are likely to be, but we all know that there will be what we call in this House a supplemental appropriation coming, and it will run into billions of dollars, maybe 50- to $100 billion for the war in Iraq itself, and after that the postwar occupation will cost, the CBO says, between $1.8 billion a month and $3.8 billion a month. We have a huge, huge cost item that is not included here. I say that because everyone should understand that there is no surplus left in this budget.”