President Bush sent a wartime supplemental spending budget to Congress Tuesday for supplemental appropriations totaling nearly $75 billion.

Bush said the funds should pay for the current war in Iraq and the United States’ global war against terror in other places, including Colombia. The money would be used for massive expenses involved in transporting troops halfway around the world, fueling aircraft and other vehicles, and airlifting supplies into the theater of war.

“My request includes funds for relief and reconstruction in a free Iraq,” Bush said Tuesday at the Pentagon. “This nation and our coalition partners are committed to making sure that the Iraqi citizens who have suffered under a brutal tyrant have got the food and medicine needed as soon as possible.”

The U.S. Senate prepared for this announcement by passing an amendment to Bush’s budget resolution introduced by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., that would create a reserve fund of up to $100 billion to pay for military action and reconstruction in Iraq by reducing the amount of tax cuts Bush proposed in his budget.

Feingold said additional funds would be necessary in the future to fund the war and restructuring in Iraq.

“If anything, the $100 billion reserves fund created by my amendment is conservative,” Feingold said. “We need to make room in the budget now for the costs of the war as well as the costs of occupying and reconstructing Iraq.”

Feingold said with the costs of the war it would be fiscally irresponsible to issue such large tax cuts.

“If Congress and the White House don’t dial down the proposed tax cut and just run up the war and post-war costs on the government’s credit card, we will only add to the already massive tab we are leaving our children and grandchildren,” Feingold said.

The Senate passed Feingold’s bill by a vote of 52-47, acting after the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill Friday morning that would allow for Bush’s entire economic growth plan, in addition to the increases the president requested for defense and homeland-security spending.

Bush praised the House’s action in a written statement Friday.

“As we engage in action to ensure freedom and security, it is imperative that we stay focused on important domestic priorities, including creating jobs and strengthening economic growth at home,” Bush said in the statement. “With passage of the budget resolution, the House has spoken clearly that future economic growth and job creation requires the passing of the bold plan that I proposed.”

For some, the passing of the bill came as a surprise because the Senate had been closely involved in debating a measure to halve the president’s tax breaks.

David Canon, associate professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, explained his opinion of the dynamics of the situation.

“Both liberals and conservatives have opposed it. Conservatives thought the tax cut was too much, and liberals opposed it because they didn’t want any tax cuts at all,” Canon said. “The moderates are trying to point out that a tax break would be nice, but we don’t have any money to pay for it right now. The liberals are thinking if they continue to vote against the tax break, they’ll eventually get the support they need to put it through.”

Some conservatives, however, say the president’s tax cut is not a bad thing.

“I think the president’s budget strikes a positive balance between a sustained economic recovery and our interests in financing efforts such as the war in Iraq,” Ben Krautkramer, UW College Republicans vice chair, said.

Canon said Feingold’s bill was not designed to make the Bush administration trade in its tax break for its war.

“The way I see it is that liberals think that it’s fiscally irresponsible to have tax cuts when we’re already running a budget deficit of $300 billion and we’ve just started a war to take over the regime which could cost hundreds of billions of dollars by the time Iraq is finished rebuilding,” Canon said.

Critics of Bush’s tax plan say it won’t stimulate the economy in the way it was intended. Rep. Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., has criticized Bush’s tax cuts as saying they would only benefit the rich and not people who are in greater need of tax breaks or in the position to put the money from the breaks back into the economy.

“In order to help the economy, the money from the tax break would need to be put in the hands of people who are going to spend it,” Canon said.

Baldwin suggested Congress could use Bush’s supplemental spending to express any distaste legislators had for the war in Iraq.

“As Congress has ceded virtually all of its power to the president with respect to the situation in Iraq, the only remaining power we have is the power of the purse strings,” Baldwin said.