More War Funding Signed by President

On December 26, President Bush signed the Consolidated Appropriations Bill passed by Congress the previous week. The Act wraps up the budget for fiscal year 2008 and provides an additional $70 billion for war. Fiscal year 2008 began October 1, 2007.

The only appropriations bill which passed Congress AND was signed by the President prior to December was the Defense appropriations bill. The bill contained $11.6 billion in war-related spending to speed up the production of Mine Resistant Ambush Protected armored vehicles, or MRAPs.

The following table presents our estimates of what this will add to total Iraq War spending:

Funding	War-related Total	Iraq War
Consolidated appropriations bill	$70	$55.97
Defense appropriations bill	$11.63	$10.47
Total for FY2008 so far	$81.63	$66.44

Total Iraq War Funding		$522.5

Total Iraq War funding includes $456.1 billion already appropriated plus $66.4 billion added for fiscal year 2008. The administration will continue to pursue more funding for FY2008 as it requested a total of $196 billion in supplemental appropriations for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The funding so far for FY2008 is less than half of the requested funding. To read more about the original February request and July and October amendments, click here [1].

Congress originally pushed to have a timetable associated with the additional funding for FY2008. The administration threatened to veto any restriction placed on the war spending.

Note on Iraq War breakdown:

NPP's estimate of the Iraq War total includes 80% of general war-related funding plus specified spending on the Iraq Freedom Fund ($3.74 billion) and Iraq Security Forces Fund ($1.5 billion). This estimate is based on past spending patterns. NPP attributed 90% of the MRAP funding included in the Defense appropriations bill of $11.6 billion to the Iraq War. While the Iraq War is the reason for expediting the provision of MRAPs, it is reasonable to attribute that a portion of this funding to the war in Afghanistan.

Sources:
Consolidated appropriations bill [2]
$70 billion in war-related spending [3]
Defense appropriations bill [4]