On Thursday, the US Senate passed the supplemental appropriations bill to fund the Iraq war along with new funding for the NIH, NSF, NASA, and DOE. The vote was 75-22 with Senators Coburn, Kennedy and McCain abstaining from voting. (That McCain did not vote on the emergency spending bill to fund the war is an interesting aside that he will likely have to explain to voters.) We detailed the science package previously, which amounts to a mere $1.2b of the total $165b in supplemental “emergency” war funding. The house will take the bill up after Memorial Day recess and most anticipate quite a fight over non-war related spending added to the bill. It’s not surprising that the press failed to even look at the bill and merely puppet the rhetoric on both sides of the aisle, but it leaves us with the question; Is this really a case of Congress spending wildly on domestic issues or is the White House playing games? Both are very possible and even likely.

Veto?

The President has threatened to veto the bill if it comes to him with non-war related spending attached to it. But are we to believe that the White House submitted a request that had only Iraq and Afghanistan war spending in it? If one looks at the President’s request, you will find that he, in fact loaded it with plenty of spending that has nothing to do with the war in Iraq.

$500m for anti-narcotics efforts in Mexico.
$50m for Central American anti-narcotics efforts.
$20m for military assistance to Poland.
$80.2m for construction at a Naval base in Djibouti.
$106m in assistance to North Korea.
$50m in assistance to Lebanon.
$500m for budget assistance to the Palestinian Authority.
$60m for peacekeeping in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
$45m to support political reconciliation in Kenya.
$15m for stabilization efforts in Uganda.

So, it isn’t as cut and dry as the White House would have you believe. Now that the bill passed the Senate, you should check to see how your Senator voted on it.