“OFF THE BOOKS” This phrase doesn’t actually mean we didn’t pay for the wars or they didn’t, at any time, manifest in the National Debt. It was accounting slang for how the cost of the wars were camouflaged from ease of scrutiny by non-exerts or seriously determined laypersons. “The most obvious way in which the true cost of this war was kept hidden was with the use of supplemental appropriations to fund the occupation. By one estimate, 70% of the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan between 2003 and 2008 were funded with supplemental or emergency appropriations approved outside the Pentagons annual budget. These appropriations allowed the Bush administration to shield the Pentagons budget from the cuts otherwise needed to finance the war, to keep the Pentagons pet programs intact and to escape the scrutiny that Congress gives to its normal annual regular appropriations.”
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 10:45:47 +0000
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