Views on Money for Iraq War: "closer to the day of reckoning"

[DeepModem Mom]

NYT: Views on Money for Iraq War, and What Else Could Be Done With It
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: April 14, 2008

WASHINGTON — With long-term estimates of the cost of the Iraq war ranging from $1 trillion to $3 trillion or more, the question naturally arises of what else the country could have done with the money.

The issue occasionally crops up on the campaign trail and in public debate. Senator Barack Obama, Democrat of Illinois, told voters in West Virginia last month that the war was costing each American household $100 a month. “Just think about what battles we could be fighting instead of fighting this misguided war,” Mr. Obama said. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Indiana recently that the war was costing $12 billion a month and was crowding out urgent national needs. “We’ve got to begin not only to withdraw our troops,” said Mrs. Clinton, Democrat of New York, “but bring that money back home.”

On the other hand, Senator John McCain of Arizona, the likely Republican nominee, says repeatedly that success in Iraq justifies any cost and that overspending in other areas is causing the strain on the federal budget. He says the government can afford whatever the war costs as well as a big corporate tax cut if it reins in wasteful federal spending....

Even if the country can afford the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan or, as Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain assert, cannot afford not to fight them, the amounts being spent on the conflict are of a scale that war critics say would allow the country to address what they see as more compelling problems. At the low end of estimates of the cost of the war — $120 billion a year — the money would cover the projected cost of Mrs. Clinton’s universal health care plan. It could pay for Mr. Obama’s less inclusive health care plan and his proposal to bail out homeowners with troubled mortgages. Or for development of new renewable energy sources and a nationwide public works program. Or pay toward a long-term fix for Social Security. Or the unpaid part of the Medicare drug benefit....

***

All three candidates may be living in a fiscal fantasyland, some neutral observers believe. “With or without the war, we can’t afford the current policy,” said (James R.) Horney of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “What the war has done is bring us a little closer to the day of reckoning, because we will have squandered the opportunity to address these long-term problems.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/us/politics/14warcosts.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[bemildred]

1. "may be living in a fiscal fantasyland"

There is no "may be" about it, the only "may be" is about when the reckoning will come.

[Paranoid Pessimist]

2. If anyone doubts the "fiscal fantasy land" reading suggestions

There are 3 good articles in the April 11th edition of Harper's. They're not on line or I'd post links, but to those who still buy magazines at newsstands, this is an issue worth reading and keeping. Lewis Lapham's witty essay on the current economic situation, Kevin Phillips (who was at one time thought of as a conservative writer and who is the absolute best California historian) has a great article explaining how the financial statistics, such as unemployment percentage and gross national product, are fudged to make things look better than they are and how this came to be, and there's a third article about the American obsession with unlimitedness.

When and if these do go online, I will repost with links.

[bemildred]

3. Harper's was pretty good this month.

That one on financial indicators in particular. Anybody with a brain knows inflation in any meaningful sense is not below 10% and has not been for a couple years, and similar considerations apply to unemployment.