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Comptroller: Surge costs don’t add up

The White House has said it will cost $5.6 billion to send 21,500 additional troops to Iraq, but that amount is much more than needed for the troops alone, the Comptroller General of the United States told the Senate Budget Committee.

“I have some serious concerns about the numbers,” David Walker told the committee during a hearing Jan. 11.

While it will cost some money to ship the additional troops to Iraq, and more for combat pay, the extra cost will be nowhere near $5.6 billion, an aide to Walker explained after the hearing.

It is unclear what much of the $5.6 billion is to be spent on, Walker said.

Walker and many others have complained that tens of billions of dollars are spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan annually with little explanation of what the money is spent on.

The wars have been funded largely through emergency supplemental appropriations. The emergency requests provide Congress with scant detail on spending.

The Congressional Budget Office reports that $432 billion was allocated for the wars through Sept. 30, 2006. Since then, Congress has approved an additional $70 billion in emergency funds, and the White House is expected to request at least $99.7 billion more next month.

Walker told the Budget Committee that as much of the cost of the wars as possible should be included in the regular 2008 defense budget so members of Congress will receive more detail on how the money is being spent.

“The defense budget is a serious problem,” Walker said in response to questions from Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. “There is tremendous waste going on.”

Congress passed legislation last fall requiring that war costs be included in the regular defense budget beginning after this year. But when President George W. Bush signed the defense spending bill, he tacked on a signing statement that indicates he might or might not comply, “as the President deems necessary and expedient.”

Walker’s comments came during a hearing that focused on the long-term budget outlook for the United States.

“The picture I will lay out for you today is not a pretty one, and it’s getting worse with the passage of time,” Walker said as the hearing got underway. “Our current financial condition is worse than advertised. Our long-term fiscal outlook is both imprudent and unsustainable.”

The main problem isn’t the military, he said, it’s Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

Increased spending on these programs as baby-boom generation workers retire will cause federal budget deficits to “spiral out of control,” Walker warned. The first of the baby-boom generation — those born between 1946 and 1964 — will reach retirement age next year.

Unless something is done, sometime after 2015, those three “entitlement” programs plus interest on the federal debt will consume more than is now spent on all other federal programs.

That is not good news for “discretionary” portions of the federal budget, such things as national defense.

Correcting the problem will require years of “real tough choices,” including cutting benefits for retirees and others, reforming the nation’s tax code and cutting federal spending outside entitlements, Walker said.

Failure to fix the problem will lead to gradual erosion of “our economy, our standard of living and ultimately even our domestic tranquility and our national security,” he said.