I thought about asking for another $70 Billion, before I decided against it

At least until after the "e-lek-shen"

The Bush administration intends to seek about $70 billion in emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan early next year, pushing total war costs close to $225 billion since the invasion of Iraq early last year, Pentagon and congressional officials said yesterday.

White House budget office spokesman Chad Kolton emphasized that final decisions on the supplemental spending request will not be made until shortly before the request is sent to Congress. That may not happen until early February, when President Bush submits his budget for fiscal 2006, assuming he wins reelection.

Well, gee, that's $25 billion more than the fact-checkers were able to pull out to criticize Kerry for, before Lynne Cheney reminded us all that her daughter was a beer-bong wielding lesbian.

Oh, and why do guys with names like "Chad Kolton" only end up as soap opera characters, weathermen, or Bush Administration Officials? Guys named "Chad Kolton" should be renting you skis and hitting on your wife, not handling federal budgetary outlays!

Oh, and the poltical damage for the Administration should grow higher:

But Pentagon and House Appropriations Committee aides said the Defense Department and military services are scrambling to get their final requests to the White House Office of Management and Budget by mid-November, shortly after the election. The new numbers underscore that the war is going to be far more costly and intense, and last longer, than the administration first suggested.

And get a LOAD of this.

Yale University economist William D. Nordhaus estimated that in inflation-adjusted terms, World War I cost just under $200 billion for the United States. The Vietnam War cost about $500 billion from 1964 to 1972, Nordhaus said. The cost of the Iraq war could reach nearly half that number by next fall, 2 1/2 years after it began.

Holy shite!