$2.4 TRILLION
posted by
Wally
7:02 AM
$8,000 for every man, woman, and child in America
That's your money literally being blown up in Iraq and Afghanistan The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could total $2.4 trillion in the next decade, according to a nonpartisan budget analysis issued Wednesday.
"We are on an unsustainable fiscal path, and something has to give," CBO director Peter Orszag said in presenting the estimates to the House Budget Committee at the request of its chairman, Rep. John Spratt, a South Carolina Democrat.
For the first time, the Congressional Budget Office also included interest in its calculations, because the wars have essentially been paid for with federal borrowing. Interest payments on spending so far would total $415 billion. Under the first scenario, there would be an additional $175 billion in interest payments, and under the second scenario, $290 billion in debt service would be added. That's a total of $590 to $705 Billion in interest, or about 2,000 to 2,350 for every American. That's just the freaking interest on the loans. The Republicans and the White House refused to even consider that part of the cost of the war when they were selling us the war over the past 4 years. How happy are you with the idea of paying 2 grand to the Chinese for the money we borrowed so we could blow it up halfway around the world?
How excited are you about starting another one in Iran that will certainly be even more expensive?
So much for the "no more than $50 billion" worst case scenario the White House painted before we invaded. But they're hoping you'll forget about that rosey little prediction. In fact, as White House spokesbimbo Dana Perino said "What I can tell you is I'm not worried about the number." Of course not Dana, the people in the White House are making shitpiles of money off of this war through their stocks in companies like Halliburton, Blackwater, etc. They're not worried about driving the economy, or the country over a cliff. They can afford to pack up and move (perhaps to Bush's new 100,000 acre ranch in Paraquay).
The White House answer, aside from "not worrying about" blowing $8,000 of your money was quick to predictably to blame the outlandish cost on the Democrats, and in a backhanded way, the troops. "Congress got a predictable answer to its leading question, which was clearly intended to artificially inflate war costs (by) politicians in Washington trying to manage our military commanders," said Sean Kevelighan, press secretary for the White House budget office. One, it wasn't the Democrats who started the war (although they are complicit in that they haven't done anything to stop or slow it). Two, the CBO is a completely non-partisan organization. Even if it weren't, based on the way this administration's history of manipulating science, if anything, the numbers were fudged to make Bush's war look better than it really is. Third, he's suggesting that the military commanders mismanaged us into this mess, when in fact the politicians in Washington are supposed to manage the military commanders. That's why the Commander in Chief is a civilian and not a General. The military follows the policy of the civilian government, not the other way around. That's how it's supposed to work.
Or is Mr. Kevelighan suggesting that we live in a military dictatorship, and that Dubya is, in fact, a dictator? Just wondering.
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