Priorities

According to Team Bush, NOLA is worth...about 17 cents for every dollar they spend on Operation They're Fucking LOSING Even If They Refuse to Admit It:

The Bush administration said Thursday it will ask Congress for $120 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and $18 billion more this year for hurricane relief.

If approved by Congress, the war money would push spending related to the wars toward a staggering half-trillion dollars...

Joel Kaplan, deputy director of the White House's budget office, said the administration was "trying to balance the desire for transparency and accurate estimating with the unpredictable nature of war and the needs on the ground."

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the requests reflect the president's desire to "commit the resources that are necessary to fight and win the war on terrorism."

The requested money would cover troop salaries and benefits, repairing and replacing equipment, supporting U.S. embassies in the two countries and taking on the insurgency. It would cover the costs of continuing to train Iraqi and Afghan security forces and protect U.S. troops.

Kaplan said the $50 billion request for Iraq and Afghanistan for 2007 is a placeholder and he suggested that the combined costs of the two campaigns could be different.

"We're still in the process of working out the details," he said.

Meantime, Donald Powell, the coordinator for rebuilding the Gulf Coast, confirmed that the administration would request $18 billion for that effort.

The money would push the total federal commitment for rebuilding to more than $100 billion, according to administration tallies. He said it probably would be the last such spending request for the current budget year. He said a detailed request would go to Congress within 10 days to 30 days.

Powell said he does not anticipate additional money for the region in the 2007 budget Bush planned to announce Monday.

Powell provided little detail about specifically what the money would be used for, saying it would include money for housing, roads and levees.

"That's a lot of money," he said, referring to the $100 billion.

But...the $100 billion includes things like insurance payments, which Da Po' Blog noted recently is an interesting development: people are obligated to pay insurance premiums, but apparently in BushWorld, disbursing CLAIMS is a discretionary act, i.e., charity. On the other side of the coin, $50 billion as a "placeholder" for war spending means you can probably count on the actual cost being quite a bit more.

One thing that probably IS consistent is the level of destruction in Iraq, Afghanistan...and the United States Gulf Coast.

Bush is managing to make Herbert Hoover look good in comparison.