White House asks Congress for $87.6 billion in extra funding, mostly for the Iran war
The White House on June 24 asked Congress for $87.6 billion in supplemental funding , most of it to cover the cost of the war with Iran. About $67 billion would go to the Pentagon — including roughly $21 billion for munitions, $17.3 billion for operations and $12.1 billion for classified programs — with smaller amounts for the Energy Department’s nuclear-related work and for State Department embassy security around Iran.
The request also bundles in $11.1 billion in aid for U.S. farmers and $1.4 billion to combat the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and neighboring countries.
The pairing is partly tactical: attaching farm aid and disease response to war funding makes the package harder for lawmakers to reject outright. Even so, passage is uncertain. Democrats are expected to resist financing an unpopular war, and the vote puts politically exposed Republicans in the position of having to formally endorse it. A 60-vote threshold in the Senate gives the minority leverage to slow or reshape the bill.