Posted on 05/10/2007 11:16:35 AM PDT by BGHater
Last week, President Bush and the Democratic Congress had a showdown over Iraq war funding. Unfortunately, it was the wrong one.
Lost amid the week's political struggles was this blunt reality: America's political leaders have been reluctant to confront the public with the need to make financial sacrifices to pay for the conflict and for the ongoing struggle against al-Qaeda. And that could spell disaster later on.
It wasn't always this way. After Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt minced no words with the American people. "War costs money," he said. "That means taxes and bonds and bonds and taxes. It means cutting luxuries and other non-essentials." If only today's leaders would say something similar.
Instead, Bush and Congress have played down the expense of the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Rather than forthrightly asking the public to shoulder new post-9/11 burdens, the administration has skirted the normal budget process, relying on supplemental appropriations. Not only were no additional taxes imposed to cover extra security costs, but the country was treated to an additional tax cut in 2003.
The Iraq war's supporters may have initially figured that the conflict would be short and cheap, making paying for it relatively painless. Later, they may have calculated that relying on emergency funding would make it easier to sustain the public's support -- an approach that assumes that most Americans are afraid of wartime economic sacrifice.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
'Entitlement programs have dramatically changed the budget landscape. Today, national security spending accounts for less than 5 percent of the nation's gross domestic product -- compared with nearly 40 percent during World War II, 15 percent during the Korean War and 10 percent during the Vietnam War. That makes it sound like it should be easy to win the needed defense funding. It won't be. The enormous sums committed to mandatory federal programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid dwarf all other aspects of the budget. Left unchecked for a decade or two, they will consume a larger share of the nation's GDP than all our federal programs today combined. Coupled with increasing interest payments on the government's rising debt, they will either force up taxes or produce dangerous deficits. Unless we get entitlement costs under control, Social Security will inevitably square off against national security.'
1) Bring back the draft!
2) Raise taxes so that we can fund a war for oil!
These ideas will effect the public mood and help with the ultimate goal:
3) Bring the troops home now!
Socialism costs money and lives too.
Trillions spent on the war on poverty. What a quagmire that is.
Freedom is not free!
War costs money. War costs lives. War requires sacrifice. War is also necessary. It’s like taking out the trash; you don’t like to do it but if you don’t your house will smell bad.
I wish we had politicians who would just state these obvious self-evident truths and not be all mealy-mouthed about it. They treat us like we are 6 year olds in the room when the “grown ups” are talking about “grown up things.”
Because they shouldn't have to?
The premise of this article is... what? That citizens won't know that "war costs money" unless politicians "say so"?
If that's true, we need a new article headlined:
"War Costs Money. Duh. Why Can't Citizens Figure That Out For Themselves?"
Perhaps this article has some other, ulterior point underlying its surface premise. Because its surface premise is stupid and condescending. Who the hell doesn't know that war costs money?!? And who exactly relies on "politicians" to tell them simple common-sense truths they should already know?
Actually, complaining that politicians "didn't tell" Americans that war costs money, is what treats them like they're stupid.
And I think a large swathe of Americans want to be treated like children. "The war's messy so let's take our toys and go home." "He told us there would be WMDs and there weren't any, boo hoo." Many of the common-sense, conventional-wisdom positions held by a majority of Americans are, when you boil it down, fundamentally childish.
But then I'm still wondering why National Guard and reserve units are continually being called up. Someone could have enlisted after 9/11, served four years and left the military. If you still need troops after all this time, then the regular services should have been significantly increased in strength. That type of thing happens in a war.
Things to ponder, if we had a DemoCrap Prez (Al Goran) on 9/11, the whole country would now resemble the WTC site. Instead we have decapitated Saddam & the Taliban and have the restof the IslamoFascist on the run, US tax revenues at all time highs, declining deficits, unemployment at all time lows and the best economy in 20+ years....Fund the War fully, dump the war on poverty, get rid of the Leftist/Defeatist in all Leadership positions in all levels of Government and the USA will be just fine and we will have our great country back on track....!
U.S. Treasury posts record $383.6 bln receipts in April.
Get that? Under Bush's so-called "tax cuts", the fedgov took in more money this year than ever before.
So where exactly is the burning need to "raise taxes" and to "have a discussion" about "how much war costs"? What more do you want the fedgov to do besides take in more tax money than every before?
The politicians can’t bring themselves to admit wars cost money. Why make something already so unpopular with the public even more unpopular, by asking the public to pay for it?
Parse this, please. There is a minority of the electorate who believe it is the PURPOSE of government to pluck the fruits of industry and dedication, to be used for the purchase of the favor of the greater part of the people (doesn’t particularly matter if they vote or not, just keep them from getting restive). Anything that takes away from this ordained cash flow into the treasury, and out to the designated favored parties, is to be strenuously resisted.
Wars tend to substract from the available capital to spend on favored programs, and adds a degree of serious consideration to the discourse, of how the money should be spent most judiciously. As most of the spending programs espoused by the minority of the electorate that deems itself the most knowledgeable are of not particularly serious or useful nature, it would be an easy reach to demonstrate that money spent at their direction is not well allocated.
If anyone has the intestinal fortitude to make this chiseling from the public treasury well known to the taxpayers.
What a great idea! Publicize the distribution of “pork” projects that get tucked in spending bills.
Dang! Why didn’t anyone think of that before?
My impression is that the author is giving Democrats a concrete rationale for cutting war funding rather than the purely ideological one Democrats have tried up to now.
A follow up pressing the point further might be "Unless we stop funding the war, children are going to starve because there will be no free school lunches and the elderly are going to have to eat dog food because their social security will be cut so much they won't be able to afford anything else."
It's a revival of the budget battle of 1995.
Perhaps, by saying "it's not fair that we're spending this money because politicians haven't 'told the public' that wars cost money".
And I'm explaining what a hollow, condescending argument that is.
A follow up pressing the point further might be "Unless we stop funding the war, children are going to starve because there will be no free school lunches and the elderly are going to have to eat dog food because their social security will be cut so much they won't be able to afford anything else."
Meanwhile, the US Treasury took in more tax money this year than ever before (see my earlier comment). This too is a bogus argument.
But you're right, they might use it; their arguments being bogus never deterred anyone before.
That tax cut allowed the deficit to be reducef from 5.0% of GDP to 3.3% (2003 to 2006) even with entitlement and defense spending holding steady, as a fraction of GDP. Even with the war costs, the fraction of the federal budget, and thus the fraction of federal taxes, going to the DoD is small. It would be better to make modest cuts in other spending, but that might cost votes. In fact the 'rat and the MSM would ensure that it did.
The fraction of GDP spent on defense, including the war costs, is around 4 percent. The only time in the post WW-II era that is was lower was right after the massive demobilization, when it was about the same, and during the Clinton Administration, when it was about 2.9% ('01 which was still a Clinton Budget year). Even the "Massive Buildup" of the Reagan years only got it to 6.6% (compared with 9.3% in '62 *before* the Vietnam war buildup). Meanwhile total federal outlays are at or near post WW-II record high levels. In '62 when defense spending was 9.3% of GDP, total federal spending was 19.8% of GDP. In 2006 total outlays had grown to 20.3% of GDP (peaking at 22.8% in '85), but defense had decline to 3.1%. In '62 entitlements were 6.1% in '06 they were 11.9% of GDP. Thus in 2006, defense spending was less than 1/3 that of entitlements spending and about 1/6th of total federal spending.
It's not Defense that requires tax increases, no matter what the Rats and MSM might say. (In fact in 2006 the deficit was *larger* than the entire defense budget (although not much), so we could cut defense entirelly and still have a deficit. (Of course if we did, the 'Rats and RINOs would spend that much more and then some, peace dividend and all that.)
A good source of such information, including graphical depictions is about 1/2 way down in the following document:
An interesting editorial on this very subject (underfunding of defense) appears in the same issue of Air Force Magazine (May 07) http://www.afa.org/magazine/may2007/0507structure.pdf
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