Congressional Democrats have adjourned for Easter recess. Although the Bush administration has identified April 15 as the date by which a supplemental must be signed in order to prevent “disruption to key programs'” (in the words of Secretary Gates), Congress will not even return to the District until April 16. Rather than meet the deadline, the top priority of Congressional Democrats is to convince Americans that the Bush administration is lying. Congressional Democrats point to a Congressional Research Service report that says:
In a memo to the Senate Budget Committee dated Wednesday, the congressional analysts said the Army has enough money in its existing budget to fund operations and maintenance through the end of May – about $52.6 billion. If additional transfer authority is tapped, subject to Congress approving a reprogramming request, the Army would have enough funds to make it through nearly two additional months, or toward the end of July.
They seem to have ignored other parts of the report, however. For example:
In order to ensure that funding is available for the later months of the year, the Army may very well decide that it must slow down its non-war-related operations before money would run out by, for example, limiting facility maintenance and repairs, delaying equipment overhauls, restricting travel and meetings, and, perhaps slowing down training. Although it is true that a delay in passage of the FY2007 supplemental could require additional management actions, Congress has given DOD flexibility by providing transfer authority so that funds can be moved to meet more urgent requirements. In this case, because the transfers would presumably be temporary, the disruptions might also be less onerous.
In addition, funding for operation and maintenance finances a wide variety of activities ranging from day-to-day maintenance of military facilities to pre-deployment training of troops. The Army could take some actions that might be less efficient but would not necessarily harm readiness by for example, delaying facilities repairs until later in the year or splitting support contracts into smaller increments so that obligations would be smaller initially and larger later in the year.
The Democratic leadership has decided that it will not even try to meet the April 15 deadline identified by Secretary Gates. Given the difficulty in resolving differences between House and Senate-passed versions of the Iraq supplemental, they are unlikely even to meet the May 1 deadline to which they themselves are pointing. And it appears that their defense consists of phrases like “the disruptions might also be less onerous,” and “actions that might be less efficient but would not necessarily harm readiness?” How reassuring. It’s gratifying to see just how deeply support for the troops runs in this Democratic Congress.
