Reuters reported last week that President Obama requested $58.6 billion from Congress for war costs in Fiscal (budget) Year 2015 after requesting almost $80 billion for the current, 2014 budget year.
For a president that boasts about “ending wars,” it seems to be quite a chunk of funds for his sixth full budget year, but the numbers are even more shocking:
President Bush requested and spent on Iraq and Afghanistan a combined $949 billion while Obama will have spent $631 billion by the end of September.
The big difference is that Bush’s spending is spread through eight budget years (2002 through 2009), while Obama’s spending is in a mere five budget years (2010 through 2014). On average, the war-monger Bush spent less than $119 billion annually on wars, while war-ending, Peace-Prize winning Obama spent more than $126 billion annually.
The above Bush spending math includes nine months of the 2009 budget in which Obama was in the White House making war changes. More accurate would be to split the 2009 spending equally between the two presidents. Doing so means Bush’s war spending drops to $870 billion and Obama’s increases to $708 billion before adding his latest request for FY2015.