Shall we check the numbers again on George W’s misbegotten war? For today, lets leave aside such depressing counts as the ever-rising numbers of dead and mangled, and just focus on the dollars he’s dumping into his foreign hostilities.
The Congressional Budget Office – a nonpartisan entity – recently reported that, as of now, Bush & Company’s badly-bungled wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will cost us $2.4 trillion by the year 2017, counting such on-going costs as veterans health care. The vast preponderance of that is chargeable to the Iraq debacle. But, gosh, how much is $2.4 trillion anyway? It’s impossible for my small brain to get hold of a number that big.
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So think of it this way. It comes to $8,000 for you, $8,000 more for your spouse, and $8,000 for each of your children. In fact, it comes to $8,000 for every one of America’s 300 million people. Maybe you can think of other things that you and your family would rather spend $8,000 a piece on than Bush’s war.
But that’s the happy part of George W’s war mongering: we don’t have to pay for it! Instead, he has generously put the whole thing on the national credit card – so your kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids will foot the bill. Indeed, the interest payments alone on this $2.4 trillion debt will tally more than $700 billion during the next ten years.
Wait – isn’t this the same George W who’s charging Congress with fiscal irresponsibility for passing a law to extend health coverage to millions of America’s children? I wonder if he knows how much health care $700 billion would buy?
Bush is a spendaholic, and he won’t stop. What we have to do is to pressure members of the Democratic Congress, demanding that they finally use their power of the purse to stop him for us.
“Another $200 Billion,” The New York Times, October 25, 2007
“Iraq, Afghanistan fighting projected to cost trillions,” Austin American Statesman, October 25, 2007
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