(Washington, D.C.) – The Council for Citizens Against Government Waste (CCAGW) today urged lawmakers to oppose the 2009 War Supplemental as currently written.  The bill, which has grown from its original $83.4 billion to $100 billion, is crammed with non-germane spending items and pork, including $5 billion to shore up International Monetary Fund (IMF) credit lines to developing countries during the recession, as well as a “cash for clunkers” program to subsidize consumer trade-ins for more fuel-efficient cars.  Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.) is engaging in his annual ritual of inserting money for Department of Defense programs that the department has not requested.  This time, he has inserted $3.1 billion for eight C-17 and 11 C-130 military transport planes.

“Congress has developed an addiction to using the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as just another occasion to graft on parochial and wasteful spending items,” said CCAGW President Tom Schatz.  “That habit was irresponsible during the best of economic times; under our current economic conditions, it is unconscionable.  Many of the items slipped into this bill are not war-related, and they are certainly not emergencies.  They should be debated under normal appropriations rules.  The nation is facing a crippling $11.4 trillion debt, and it makes no sense to add $5 billion to shore up the economies of other countries, while making our own liabilities even more unsustainable.  Enough is enough,” added Schatz.   

Funds appropriated under an emergency designation are not subject to budget controls or periodic congressional review and oversight.  According to a January 2008 Government Accountability Office report, “Over the 10-year period from fiscal year 1997 through fiscal year 2006, supplemental appropriations provided about $612 billion ($557 billion net of rescissions) in new gross budget authority, a five-fold increase over the previous 10-year period.  Ninety-five percent of the total supplemental funds were appropriated to 11 departments, with DOD receiving nearly 60 percent of the total.” 

“President Obama should threaten a veto of the war supplemental until it is shorn of these extraneous expenditures.  If Congress wants to promulgate a ‘cash for clunkers’ program or subsidize developing countries through the IMF, it should do so above board and in the light of day,” concluded Schatz.  “It is time to stop using the funding for our brave soldiers, sailors, and airmen as a cover for their pork-barreling habits.”

CCAGW is the lobbying arm of Citizens Against Government Waste, the nation’s largest nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.