Obama said today he would put the full cost of Iraq and Afghanistan on the budget

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Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 2:15 pm

Remarks by the president and the vice president at opening of fiscal responsibility summit: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-president-and-the-vice-president-at-opening-of-fiscal-responsibility-summit-2-23-09/

"For too long, our budget process in Washington has been an exercise in deception -- a series of accounting tricks to hide the extent of our spending and the shortfalls in our revenue and hope that the American people won't notice: budgeting certain expenditures for just one year, when we know we'll incur them every year for five or 10; budgeting zero dollars for the Iraq war -- zero -- for future years, even when we knew the war would continue; budgeting no money for natural disasters, as if we would ever go 12 months without a single flood, fire, hurricane or earthquake.

We do ourselves no favors by hiding the truth about what we spend. In order to address our fiscal crisis, we're going to have to be candid about its scope. And that's why the budget I will introduce later this week will look ahead 10 years, and will include a full and honest accounting of the money we plan to spend and the deficits we will likely incur."


more: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-president-and-the-vice-president-at-opening-of-fiscal-responsibility-summit-2-23-09/


I guess he means AFTER this supplemental appropriation Gates is requesting for Afghanistan and Iraq . . .

Feb. 20 (Bloomberg) -- The Pentagon needs at least $83 billion more for combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan through the end of this fiscal year, Pentagon officials told the White House.

This figure includes $7.3 billion to pay for adding troops in Afghanistan, Pentagon officials wrote to the Office of Management and Budget on Feb. 3. The U.S. will add about 17,000 to its force of 38,000, President Barack Obama announced this week.

The $83 billion is $13.3 billion more than Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in late December was needed. That estimate of $69.7 billion didn’t include the cost of sending more troops to Afghanistan, he said then.

Congress already has approved $65.9 billion in emergency wartime spending for fiscal 2009, which ends Sept. 30. The latest request would bring the amount to about $149 billion.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=av.r.Cs8ohak&refer=canada

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1. Honesty.

What an incredible concept in government.

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2. it'll provide needed perspective

. . . about what we spend the bulk of our money on

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3. .