March 13, 2007

Price for Iraq War Just Went Up, Again

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It feels like deja-vu all over again: The Congressional Quarterly reports that

The first full draft of the emergency supplemental spending bill for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan totals $124.1 billion — $21.1 billion more than the president’s request…

Every year the administration asks for more [PDF] and more “emergency supplemental appropriations.” If they are not asking for more money, they are worried about Iraq’s trade and economy rather than the hundreds of thousands of people dying. And why wouldn’t they be? The Bush administration and its oil-industry allies are going to reap the rewards.

As Americans pay and pay for the failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s no surprise that the administration still won’t pony up for health care for (all) its citizens.

More on the ever-mounting cost of the Iraq War in our handy Iraq 101 guide, here.

—Neha Inamdar

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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