Oh, by the way.... 2.9 TRILLION for the uh... budget and the war in Iraq please...

Bush is sure he can wring just a bit more money out for his cronies before his term is up.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush on Monday unveiled a $2.9 trillion spending plan that devotes billions more to fighting the war in Iraq but pinches pennies on programs promised to voters by Democrats now running Congress. Democrats widely attacked the plan and even a prominent Republican conceded it faced bleak prospects.

Bush's spending plan would make his first-term tax cuts permanent, at a cost of $1.6 trillion over 10 years. He is seeking $78 billion in savings in the government's big health care programs - Medicare and Medicaid - over the next five years.

Release of the budget in four massive volumes kicks off months of debate in which Democrats, now in control of both the House and Senate for the first time in Bush's presidency, made clear that they have significantly different views on spending and taxes.

"The president's budget is filled with debt and deception, disconnected from reality and continues to move America in the wrong direction," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Kent Conrad, D-N.D.

House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt, D-S.C., said, "I doubt that Democrats will support this budget, and frankly, I will be surprised if Republicans rally around it either."

The Christian Science Monitor has a list of links under this article's headline: US audit finds 'spectacular' waste of funds in Iraq.

This article was posted in June of 2004:

WASHINGTON — A comprehensive examination of the U.S.-led agency that oversaw the rebuilding of Iraq has triggered at least 27 criminal investigations and produced evidence of millions of dollars' worth of fraud, waste and abuse, according to a report by the Coalition Provisional Authority's inspector general.

The report is the most sweeping indication yet that some U.S. officials and private contractors repeatedly violated the law in the free-wheeling atmosphere that pervaded the multibillion-dollar effort to rebuild the war-torn country.

More than $600 million in cash from Iraqi oil money was spent with insufficient controls. Senior U.S. officials manipulated or misspent contract money. Millions of dollars' worth of equipment could not be located, the report said.

TomPaine.comonsense posted this in December 2006 :

What followed was a U.S. corporate invasion of Iraq.

While some 150 U.S. companies received contracts for work in Iraq following the invasion, the big reconstruction winners (after Halliburton) were: Parsons Corporation of Pasadena, Calif. ($5.3 billion); Fluor Corporation of Aliso Viejo, Calif. ($3.75 billion); Washington Group International of Boise, Idaho ($3.1 billion); Shaw Group of Baton Rouge, Louisiana ($3 billion); Bechtel Corporation of San Francisco, Calif. ($2.8 billion); Perini Corporation of Framingham, Mass. ($2.5 billion); and Contrack International, Inc. of Arlington, Va. ($2.3 billion).

These seven companies are responsible for virtually all reconstruction in Iraq, including water, electricity, bridges, roads, hospitals and sewers. One reason for their failure was that companies, such as Bechtel, came to Iraq with the hopes of ultimately winning contracts to privatize the services they were hired to rebuild. Because many U.S. contracts guaranteed that all of the companies’ costs would be covered, plus a set rate of profit—known as “cost-plus contracts”—they took their time, built expensive new facilities that showcased their skills and would serve their own needs were they to run the systems one day.

The American companies were hired instead of Iraqi companies that had successfully rebuilt Iraq after the previous U.S. invasion. And, because the Americans did not have to hire Iraqis, many imported foreign workers instead. The Iraqis were of course well aware that American firms had received billions of dollars for reconstruction, that Iraqi companies and workers had been rejected and that the country was still without basic services. The result was increasing hostility, acts of sabotage targeted directly at foreign contractors and their work and a rising insurgency.

In the end, Iraq has not emerged as the wealthy free-market haven these companies and others waiting on the horizon had hoped for, at least not yet (the economic policies put in place by the Bush administration remain and the work is ongoing to turn Iraq into a corporate-friendly Middle East Mecca). Therefore, several U.S. companies are preparing to follow Bechtel’s lead by packing up, heading home, and taking their billions of dollars with them, while leaving their work in Iraq undone.

Awash literally with money, businesses came to Iraq to do work. They will be leaving without completing what they were paid to do, and they will keep their money. Tell me again what the definition of insanity is?

So... tell me again. Why should the US taxpayer support this war?

Because after a point...


We should notice....


The people running this war....


Are in it only for the money....

.