WASHINGTON, Jan 25: Bush administration is seeking $80 billion in new funds from Congress for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan on top of $25 billion already approved for 2005.
Also on Tuesday, the Congressional Budget Office predicted the US government would go another $855 billion into debt over the next decade and this does not include the costs of ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and President Bush's Social Security plan.
The request for additional war funds pushes the total provided so far for those wars and for US efforts against terrorism elsewhere in the world to more than $280 billion since the first money was provided shortly after the Sept 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The deficit projections for the years 2006 through 2015 is almost two-thirds lower than what congressional budget analysts predicted last fall, but the drop is largely due to the exclusion of the costs of war in Iraq and Afghanistan and estimated cost of future conflicts in the Middle East. Last September, the CBO's 10-year deficit was estimated at $2.3 trillion.
The projection also omits the price tags of President Bush's goal of revamping social security, which could cost $1 trillion to $2 trillion and an estimated $1.8 trillion price tag of extending his tax cuts and other related expenses.
The CBO also projects this year's shortfall will be $368 billion. That was close to the $348 billion deficit for 2005 it forecast last fall. If the estimate proves accurate, it would be the third-largest deficit ever, behind only last year's $412 billion and the $377 billion gap of 2003.
If Tuesday's request for additional war funds includes, the US war costs in Iraq and Afghanistan and in the war against terror is already near half the $613 billion it spent for World War I or the $623 billion it spent in the Vietnam War, when the costs of those wars are translated into 2005 dollars.
The Bush administration's request for additional war funds is significant because it illustrates the extent of military needs in Iraq, where most of this money will be spent.
Briefing journalists in Washington, Bush administration and congressional officials said the effort to contain a growing insurgency in Iraq is costing more than US policy planners had expected when they went to war in March 2003.
