Patty Murray: “the Senate is going to be considering in just a few minutes the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act. I do want to…”

“the Senate is going to be considering in just a few minutes the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act. I do want to be clear that like most of my colleagues, I will be voting for this bill because it does provide the funding for our troops that is critically needed to carry out their mission and because it supports recovery efforts along the coast. I do wish to express three concerns I have with the conference report. First, this bill continues the charade that this war should be funded off budget. Instead of including the money our troops need in the regular budget as requested by the President and sent to us, we keep getting sent emergency supplemental requests. It is clear to me, having been here for 13\1/2\ years, that emergency spending bills used to be for emergencies, things we could not foresee such as natural disasters. The need for funding for the war in Iraq is not a surprise. It is not like responding to an earthquake or tornado. By funding the war off budget, I fear we continue to hide the true cost of the war. It is imperative that the Senate and the House get a budget from the President that gives us the true cost of what we need to be funding. In addition, the administration should not have the sole authority to decide what is worthy of emergency funding and what is not. We have emergencies in our backyard as well as overseas. We should not hand over to the President the final authority on what deserves emergency funding.…”