From Sistertoldjah
Obama, Pelosi and Reid have been spending your grandchildrens’ money. What are you going to tell them when they ask why you did nothing to stop them?
J.D.
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http://www.frumforum.com/applebaum-what-did-the-iraq-war-really-cost
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3419840.ece
And it just keeps on tickin’ and tickin’ and tickin”…actually it’s never gonna stop…!
Check it for yourselves, folks…
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home
Where’s my earlier comment with [3] links…?
Gramps – I suspect the spam filter got your comment with three links. Spam comments tend to have lots of links.
There is a reason I have not posted a graph such as the one on this post on my own blog. Most people do not grasp numbers well. Graphs also don’t explain the underlying assumptions which in this case I think are faulty.
Assumption 1: All Federal spending is equal. FALSE.
These days there are two distinctly different types Federal spending: constitutional and unconstitutional. The money we spent on the Iraq war was unquestionably constitutional. On the other hand, there is a long list of social welfare programs for which no justification can be found in the constitution. Without these programs, we would have no trouble whatsoever balancing the Federal budget.
Assumption 2: All the money we spent on the Iraq war qualifies as “deficit spending.” FALSE.
During much of Bush’s presidency, we had a Democrat Congress. The Democrats contrived to make the Iraq war look as embarrassing as possible. That included conniving to make spending on the Iraq war (really just a mop-up operation prolonged by Democrat opposition) look like deficit spending.
Nonsense! Deficits results from the fact we spend more money than we have. Think of it this way. If we did not have a deficit, would funding the Iraq war still qualify as deficit spending? Then why artificially attribute the deficit to Iraq War? Don’t you know that amount we spend on unconstitutional social welfare programs is far larger than what we spend on the entire defense budget?
Why do the numbers lie? The problem is that people cannot be trusted. We can only trust our leaders to protect our rights if that is all we ask them to do. If we also ask them to use the government to give us things, we cannot trust them. Social welfare spending corrupts both our leaders and us, the People. That is because all social welfare spending involves robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Consider Social Security, supposedly a retirement program based upon contributions, as an example. To finance Social Security, the old must rob the young. The so-called trust fund never existed. We greedily spent that money. Thus, in order to finance Social Security, we must rob our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. If that is an example of our own ethics, how can we expect to trust our leaders?
CT, you wrote…
Yes; if you take the whole despicable, ‘effen, Iraq, war off budget and do it entirely by presidential, special appropriations. Little Bush didn’t have the cajones to publish or propose “Dubyah’s, fine adventure into olde Mesopotamia” as part of the budget…and he, brought our brave women and men back to Dover Air Base in the deep darkness of night so the citizenry; wouldn’t be confused by the actual real cost of his damn war…!
What dah who…? Except for my fine Senator, Russ Feingold; the Democrats didn’t have the cajones to challenge the utterly foolish and unwarranted spending on the war in Iraq. Democratic opposition…yah can’t kid a kidder, CT…!
Yah think…? Why we actually agree…CT!
Then there is this actually factual illustration; depicting how money in the federal budget is truly allocated…!
http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm
Would that we might have had Al Gore and his “lock box”… in lieu of Vice President Cheney’s, disgraceful, unnecessary, war in Iraq.
Oh well…just more bad war, water under the bridge, CT…!
Awww, Gramps, another LOAD of CRAP! The Dems voted for the invasion, and if you weren’t so senile you would remember that the invasion had the overwhelming support in the polls. The Dems were just tools: they supported the war so that if WMD were found, they’d share the glory, but if WMD were not found, they could lie about supporting the war and claim that Bush lied.
You are entitled to your opinion, but you are not allowed to make up the facts. Dems supported the invasion. Quit lying about it.
Bejeebus JD, did yah read what I wrote…
Gimme ah break JD…except for Senator Feingold, all the Democrats were complicit in an historical exercise of humongous economic, human and political stupidity…The War in Iraq…!
I do not lie.
Gramps – No offense. I doubt you meant to do it, but you are repeating made up facts.
Remember what I said about graphs. The one you reference here (http://www.warresisters.org/pages/piechart.htm) is a perfect example. Because they have their own axe to grind, sharpen, and hack us with, those nice war resisters conveniently excluded a substantial portion of the Federal budget. Here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_federal_budget) is a more accurate representation.
Just because we might want to do so does not mean it makes any sense to exclude Social Security and other social insurance programs from the Federal Budget. We don’t pay all our taxes just through income taxes. We are taxed multiple ways and all that money goes into the same pot and is spent by the same people, Congress.
You mentioned Al Gore’s lock box. Do you really think that would have made any difference? FDR lied about the Social Security program at its inception. He knew how it would work. Do you think politicians have gotten more honest? What if Congress put Social Security funds in a lock box? You think that means they don’t have the key? Once those clowns have our money, don’t they always find some way to spend it? What good is a lock box when we have entrusted thieves with its key?
There is an old saying that has become trite. For all that, it remains the simple truth. Here it is in full.
The people who want to give us a social welfare state are great men. They demand too much power over us, and we have no business giving it them.
Yep. I was right. Too many links and one’s comment goes into moderation.
I hate when that happens.
Just as well. Can imagine how the wait tortured Gramps?
Don’t make me track you down on my 24 cc moped and then get off and sic LTB’s Ghost on ya, Gramps.
BTW: where the HE “double, toothpicks” is, LTB…?
Is that sorry mother… off on one of his semi-professional indiscretions…
That olde sucker has to stay good physical shape, for that type of anomalous activity…!
Gramps sends…HOOAAH…!
You ‘effin dimbulbe…
JD…
Is LTB… “werkin” on a political campaign in Florida…?
I don’t know. I wish he would check in.
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ooops. never mind.
John Doe – It seems you caught WordPress being obstinate — not that I mind having my comment posted twice.
It is also weird that everything is in bold.
[John Doe fixed it. Doh!]
It’s about time…
The WAPO finally gets it right too…!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/03/AR2010090302200.html
Pacifists use to say that warmongers started wars to stimulate the economy. Supposedly WWII ended the Great Depression. After that war the economy smoothly transitioned into a prosperous period. Yet if we are to believe the WAPO, war, particularly one as costly as WWII, would be an enormous drag on the economy.
So which is it? Is war good for the economy, or is war bad for it? Or is it possible that too much government is bad for the economy? Did you ever notice that a lot of FDR’s New Deal went to the scrapheap?
During WWII we drafted most of our military forces. When the war ended, the survivors came home and went to work. Was that was good for the economy? Today we have small force of volunteers. Only a small fraction of our population has any association with the military. Most people stay home and work. Is that good for the economy? Does it help when government does not take all their money?
By any sane measure, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan are insignificant in comparison with WWII. Is it possible our nation is suffering from economic mismanagement, too much government, not war?