Again Supplementals

President Obama promised to end the practice of funding wars "off budget" through supplemental appropriations, and part of the reason that his budget for upcoming years is so large, we are told, is that it includes the war funding that previous administrations had omitted. But yesterday the Obama Administration submitted a supplemental appropriation for funding the war in Iraq and Afghanistan in the amount of $83 billion.

From AFP News,

"We can't wait until the appropriations process is done in September or August or September to fund operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in June," said spokesman Robert Gibbs.

"The honest budgeting and appropriations process that the president has talked about falls somewhat victim to the fact that this is the way that wars have been funded previously," the spokesman said.

But "this will be the last supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan," he promised.

Of course we were told that George Bush's last supplemental would be the last war funding supplemental, so...

So, does this $83 billion fund the wars only for three months? If so we are talking about spending some $400 billion per year. How long are we going to continue spending that kind of money, and what could we do with it in the way of domestic programs if we did not spend it on wars? Idle questions, because our government does not consider wars to be optional.