As Washington prepares to tap taxpayers for a bipartisan bailout of the US financial system, is it out of order to ask our Iraqi friends who are sitting on $80 billion of oil profits to put a little something into their own pot?
After our expenditure of half a trillion dollars, $10 billion a month of American money is still going there. Our friends in Baghdad could ease the credit crunch here by taking over some of that tab from now on without going broke themselves.
The suggestion might be most palatable coming from their best friend, John McCain, who is presenting himself as responsible for their victory over chaos. Would we be leaving Iraq with less honor if they starting buying some of the blessings of democracy with their own money?
One incentive for such a selfless gesture might be the prospect of Barack Obama moving into the White House next January with his plans for troop withdrawals that would speed the day when the Iraqis run their own country and pay for its upkeep.
The old song of the 20th century Depression had a war veteran asking, "Buddy, can you spare a dime?" Nouri, old buddy, can't you spare a billion or two or three?
Showing posts with label Iraq war costs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Iraq war costs. Show all posts
Friday, September 19, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
The Mideast Money Drain
With the economy in a nosedive, the Democratic Congress is beginning to turn its anti-war focus on the dollars that are being drained by Bush's Mideast policies.
"In a shift from last year’s failed legislative efforts to force a reduction of troops," the New York Times reports, "the Democrats’ new approach is...focusing on the financial cost of military operations and on the war’s implications for the nation’s troubled economy."
This coupling comes on the heels of a new book, "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict" by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz with Linda Bilmes, which estimates that Iraq has already cost almost ten times as much as the first Gulf War, almost a third more than Vietnam and twice as much as the First World War.
Stiglitz told a British think tank this week that war spending was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch after our central bank responded to the financial drain by flooding the American economy with cheap credit.
"The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system," he said, leading to a housing bubble and a consumption boom that has driven the economy into recession and saddled the next president with the biggest budget deficit in history.
If this argument is too complicated for politicians to make, Senate committees are beginning to hone in on the billions that have been wasted or stolen during the past five years of presumably protecting us from terrorists--an estimated $3.8 billion misspent by Musharraf in Pakistan along with billions more that have vanished in Iraq.
When voters get their stimulus checks of a few hundred dollars this summer, they may want to think about that.
"In a shift from last year’s failed legislative efforts to force a reduction of troops," the New York Times reports, "the Democrats’ new approach is...focusing on the financial cost of military operations and on the war’s implications for the nation’s troubled economy."
This coupling comes on the heels of a new book, "The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict" by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz with Linda Bilmes, which estimates that Iraq has already cost almost ten times as much as the first Gulf War, almost a third more than Vietnam and twice as much as the First World War.
Stiglitz told a British think tank this week that war spending was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch after our central bank responded to the financial drain by flooding the American economy with cheap credit.
"The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system," he said, leading to a housing bubble and a consumption boom that has driven the economy into recession and saddled the next president with the biggest budget deficit in history.
If this argument is too complicated for politicians to make, Senate committees are beginning to hone in on the billions that have been wasted or stolen during the past five years of presumably protecting us from terrorists--an estimated $3.8 billion misspent by Musharraf in Pakistan along with billions more that have vanished in Iraq.
When voters get their stimulus checks of a few hundred dollars this summer, they may want to think about that.
Friday, February 08, 2008
The Economy, Stupid--Again
With the imminent passage and signing of the stimulus bill, both parties have signed on to acknowledging that the economy is the major issue of the Presidential campaign. How will the candidates adjust?
Hillary Clinton has the 1992 "It's the economy, stupid" playbook in place as well as a new, improved Bill Clinton to stump on the good times of his tenure without creating new animosity and resentment.
Barack Obama will be hard-pressed to translate his idealism into leadership on the issue without looking too dreamy on the one hand or too scary with any practical solutions he proposes. FDR would be the most likely template--"nothing to fear but fear itself" with the argument that government can be the solution, not the problem.
John McCain will likely try to overcome his admitted deficiencies as Economist-in-Chief by shielding himself with a panel of Free Enterprise gurus while he hammers away at Republican verities about the wisdom of the marketplace.
Meanwhile, voters will be worrying about whether the downturn is going to be long, as Paul Krugman suggests today, or with rebate money in their pockets lighten up enough to believe that the economy will soon turn around, as it always does.
Shoved into the background will be ugly fact that Iraq continues to consume not only American lives but enormous amounts of money that could be invested in our infrastructure and put people to work.
But as McCain goes about proclaiming "victory" with "honor," making that case may turn out to be a hard sell.
Hillary Clinton has the 1992 "It's the economy, stupid" playbook in place as well as a new, improved Bill Clinton to stump on the good times of his tenure without creating new animosity and resentment.
Barack Obama will be hard-pressed to translate his idealism into leadership on the issue without looking too dreamy on the one hand or too scary with any practical solutions he proposes. FDR would be the most likely template--"nothing to fear but fear itself" with the argument that government can be the solution, not the problem.
John McCain will likely try to overcome his admitted deficiencies as Economist-in-Chief by shielding himself with a panel of Free Enterprise gurus while he hammers away at Republican verities about the wisdom of the marketplace.
Meanwhile, voters will be worrying about whether the downturn is going to be long, as Paul Krugman suggests today, or with rebate money in their pockets lighten up enough to believe that the economy will soon turn around, as it always does.
Shoved into the background will be ugly fact that Iraq continues to consume not only American lives but enormous amounts of money that could be invested in our infrastructure and put people to work.
But as McCain goes about proclaiming "victory" with "honor," making that case may turn out to be a hard sell.
Monday, February 04, 2008
Iraq, Iraq, Iraq
Exit polls tomorrow night will undoubtedly show voters went into the booths worried about health care, home foreclosures, job security and other fallout from an impending recession.
Their concerns are understandable, but they may want to recall that a little over a year ago, in November 2006, their ballots gave control of Congress to Democrats with a mandate to stop the war in Iraq.
That did not happen and since then voters have been lulled by an Imperial President, using Gen. Petraeus as a human shield, into forgetting that American deaths there now total 3,945 at a cost to taxpayers exceeding $10 billion a month.
All the Republican candidates, except Ron Paul, are in favor of continuing to do that.
As for the Democrats, in 2002, I wrote to Sen. Hillary Clinton pleading with her not to give George W. the power to invade Iraq and warning that, if she did, I would never vote for her for any office. Tomorrow I will keep that promise.
Their concerns are understandable, but they may want to recall that a little over a year ago, in November 2006, their ballots gave control of Congress to Democrats with a mandate to stop the war in Iraq.
That did not happen and since then voters have been lulled by an Imperial President, using Gen. Petraeus as a human shield, into forgetting that American deaths there now total 3,945 at a cost to taxpayers exceeding $10 billion a month.
All the Republican candidates, except Ron Paul, are in favor of continuing to do that.
As for the Democrats, in 2002, I wrote to Sen. Hillary Clinton pleading with her not to give George W. the power to invade Iraq and warning that, if she did, I would never vote for her for any office. Tomorrow I will keep that promise.
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Suffer the Little Children...
As the cost of the war in Iraq approaches $200 billion a year, President Bush is threatening to veto a bipartisan bill to provide health insurance for children of low-income families because it will cost $12 billion a year rather than the $6 billion he approves.
The added funding would increase the number covered to 10 million from 6.6 and, unlike war costs, would come not from all taxpayers but those who add to health risks with a 61-cent increase in the federal excise tax on a pack of cigarettes.
According to the President, it isn’t the money, it’s the principle of the thing. At his press conference this week, he explained the “philosophical divide.”
“Democratic leaders in Congress,” he said, “want to put more power in the hands of government...I have a different view. I believe the best approach is to put more power in the hands of individuals by empowering people and their doctors to make health care decisions that are right for them.”
The decisions the President is talking about have nothing to do with actual health care--treatments, medications, etc.--only money: Do private insurers keep collecting one out of every three dollars spent for their overhead and profit? Or does Congress bypass them to make health care available for more of the poor?
Next week will provide a reality test for this kind of posturing with the lives of American children. If Bush vetoes the increase, will enough Republicans join in overriding it?
The added funding would increase the number covered to 10 million from 6.6 and, unlike war costs, would come not from all taxpayers but those who add to health risks with a 61-cent increase in the federal excise tax on a pack of cigarettes.
According to the President, it isn’t the money, it’s the principle of the thing. At his press conference this week, he explained the “philosophical divide.”
“Democratic leaders in Congress,” he said, “want to put more power in the hands of government...I have a different view. I believe the best approach is to put more power in the hands of individuals by empowering people and their doctors to make health care decisions that are right for them.”
The decisions the President is talking about have nothing to do with actual health care--treatments, medications, etc.--only money: Do private insurers keep collecting one out of every three dollars spent for their overhead and profit? Or does Congress bypass them to make health care available for more of the poor?
Next week will provide a reality test for this kind of posturing with the lives of American children. If Bush vetoes the increase, will enough Republicans join in overriding it?
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