If By Nothing You Mean $140+ Billion

Fred Kaplan in Slate:

The FY 2008 budget does not include the cost of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. (Those costs are covered in the $95.5 billion emergency-spending bill, part of a supplement to the FY 2007 budget, over which the White House and Congress are currently quarreling.) (emphasis original)

The FY08 National Defense Authorization Act just reported out of committee on a 58-0 vote (pdf) includes some $140+ billion in "Authorization of Additional Appropriations for Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom" (pdf - see Sections 1501-1517, starting on page 655).

It's astonishing that while all sides posture and preen for advantage over the supplemental, Congress is quietly on track, without so much as a peep from the anti-war groups or the reality-based community, toward approval of a benchmark- and timetable-free additional $140+ billion for Iraq and Afghanistan in the FY 2008 budget...