President-elect Barack Obama's administration must decide whether to severely curtail or eliminate expanded spending parameters for the services' wartime supplemental requests, which have sent costs soaring for ongoing operations in Southwest Asia, according to defense analyst Steven Kosiak. Between fiscal years 2004 and 2006, supplemental spending increased over three-fold, skyrocketing from $8 billion to roughly $26 billion department wide, Kosiak, vice president for budget studies at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said in a Dec. 15 briefing...
