Misconception: If we only didn’t fight the *EXPLETIVE* war in Iraq, we could have had enough money for *YOUR FAVORITE SOCIAL SPENDING ITEM*.
ByThe Iraq war is a very common fixation among socialists so here goes:
Regardless of whether letting a brutal dictator, who was actively shooting at US Air Force planes (there to prevent a genocide), paying money for suicide bombers, violating UN resolutions, preventing UN inspectors form doing their job, and has killed hundreds of thousands of people in the past, get away scot-free is a good idea or not (and it’s okay which ever way you think here because any war has a cost)…
The war in Iraq is not the reason we’re not spending money on your precious program or cause!
In the decade from 1998 to 2008, annual Federal spending went from 2.1 to 2.8 trillion dollars, in 2008 inflation adjusted dollars. This means an average increase of 0.07 trillion or $70 billion per year over and above inflation. See federal spending chart here.
The total cost of the war in Iraq from March 2001 through August 2009, roughly an 8.5 year span, is $674 billion, or a yearly average of $79 billion. Source: costofwar.com.
This means that every year in the past decade we spent the equivalent of a little less than another Iraq war’s annual budget more than the previous. Quitting Iraq the next day would get us right back where we started in a year and change.
That was the situation until this year. For 2009, Federal spending is due to increase from 2.9 trillion dollars in 2008 to 3.9 trillion! That’s an in crease of one trillion, and is the equivalent of 1.5 times the expenditure on the ENTIRE war in Iraq since 2001, or the equivalent of 12.7 times the average annual spending on the war.
So quit b****ing about the war in Iraq taking away money from *YOUR FAVORITE SOCIAL SPENDING ITEM*. It’s not exactly preventing the government from spending more money, and not spending on the war is not going to balance any Federal budgets any time soon either
4 Comments
August 17th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Thank you, thank you, thank you,
August 18th, 2009 at 12:46 am
Find a tea party where you live and join the march on Wishington. Mine is http://www.charlestonteaparty.org
August 21st, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Wow, congratulations on making zero sense. That’s 80 billion that could be spent somewhere else. Not saying spending it on the war is a bad thing, but 80 billion is 80 billion, it wouldn’t suddenly disappear without the war.
August 21st, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Since last year, and the year before, and before, etc. we already did spend it on the war in Iraq AND something else. Did you complain about the Iraq war preventing something from being spent on last year? Then why are you still complaining this year? We’re spending way more money now than we did last year. Still not enough? Just wait until next year, we’ll be spending even more then. Will you be still complaining?
Do I have to say it again? The money spent on Iraq won’t disappear if it’s not spent, but despite that, pick any government program, the Iraq war is not preventing any money from being spent on it. It’s called borrowing. Our current $2 trillion deficit is strong proof of that.
And whenever I make zero sense, it’s because you have zero comprehension.