Congressional Talks Produce Agreement on $94.5

[Maggie_May]

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=2056450
The bill includes $65.8 billion for military operations and maintenance in Afghanistan and Iraq, personnel and energy costs and new weapons and ammunition and a $2 billion initiative to locate and disarm roadside bombs.
Lawmakers added funding to upgrade Abrams tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles for National Guard troops and nearly doubled the Pentagon request for new, better-armored Humvees.
The bill also contains $19.8 billion in new money for hurricane relief along the Gulf Coast, including housing aid and flood control projects for Louisiana, small business disaster loans, rebuilding federal facilities damaged by Hurricane Katrina and replenishing Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster relief coffers.
The agreement caps weeks of mostly behind-the-scenes talks on Capitol Hill over how to balance lawmakers' hopes for additional hurricane relief with Bush's demand that the bill stick to his original $92.2 billion request for Iraq and Afghanistan and hurricanes, with an additional $2.3 billion to combat bird flu.

(Here we go again spending more money on a war and less on our needs at home.)

[maddezmom]

1. duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=2329531