[I drafted this post two months ago, but the OMB language is sufficiently funny that I'll go ahead and post it now.]

Via the Honolulu Advertiser comes this highly entertaining OMB explanation for the Bush administration's opposition to a 3.5% pay raise for the armed forces:

Like the House, senators favor a 3.5 percent military pay raise for 2008 versus the administration's proposed 3 percent to match private sector wage growth as measured by the government's Employment Cost Index or ECI. The White House calls the extra half percentage point unnecessary and notes that basic pay has jumped by 33 percent since 2001. The added cost of the bigger raise, $2.2 billion through 2013, is money "that would otherwise be available to support our troops," said the OMB letter.