CNN reports this afternoon: “The Bush administration on Monday requested an additional $42.3 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bringing the 2008 request for total war funding to $189.3 billion.”

ANITA DANCS
Dancs is research director of the National Priorities Project. She said today: “If Congress passes this, it would bring the Iraq war total since 2003 to $611 billion — that’s about $5,500 per U.S. household. The Vietnam War total from 1964 to 1973 was $673 billion in constant 2007 dollars.

“If Congress passes this request, we will be spending on the Iraq war this year enough to provide health care coverage for all uninsured Americans.”
More Information

ERIK LEAVER
Leaver is a research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. He said today: “Threatening vetoes against all of the spending bills out of Congress for their lack of ‘fiscal restraint,’ Bush has ignored his own advice by asking for a record amount of money for the Iraq war for 2008. Hitting nearly $200 billion, the highest requested for a single year since the war began, the cost of war in 2008 will dwarf the budgets of every single government department, except for the Department of Defense.”
More Information

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167.