phreakwars
New member
If your so convinced that Obama's tax plan has already been implemented, why is congress still debating letting the Bush Tax cuts expire?
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A question for dipshit
- Thread starter phreakwars
- Start date
timesjoke
Active Members
You asking yourself questions again Bender?
There is no debate in Congress, there is only fear to expose their real intentions before the elections. Every person in the business world knows that the Progressives intend to further punish them for daring to invest in America.
There is no debate in Congress, there is only fear to expose their real intentions before the elections. Every person in the business world knows that the Progressives intend to further punish them for daring to invest in America.
phreakwars
New member
Oh, so you don't want to answer the question... I see.
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timesjoke
Active Members
You are the only dipsh!t on the forum Bender, so the question was obviously for you, but I did give you an answer to give to yourself, what more can anyone do?
Obama has been in office for two years now, hard to claim he is still working out his plans for taxes other than creating as many new ways to tax the populace as possible.
He is even increasing taxes on medical implants like new hips. Imagine, you have a bad hip, most likely you are not working for a long time trying different treatments and such and all ending in failure and you have to resort to this kind of drastic surgery.......why does Obama feel this is a good time to hit you with taxes?
No amount of taxes will ever be enough for a Progressive. There is always some other program or situation that "NEEDS" their control and someone else's money to pay for it. The only way to deal with a Progressive is to simply say enough is enough.
phreakwars
New member
The question was:
If your so convinced that Obama's tax plan has already been implemented, why is congress still debating letting the Bush Tax cuts expire?
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If your so convinced that Obama's tax plan has already been implemented, why is congress still debating letting the Bush Tax cuts expire?
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timesjoke
Active Members
And the answer is the "plan" is to increase taxes on everyone as much as possible. As with any "plan" there are stages, the plan can include all sorts of complex posturing and games but in this case their intent is to raise taxes on the "rich" (also called job creaters) after the election to avoid further harming themselves.
If the Progressives wanted to extend the Bush tax cuts they would have. The Republicans already said there would be no need to debate or challenge anything if a clean measure was brought to the floor. The Progressives refused to bring the vote to the floor because there is no way Obama will get behind letting the "rich" (those same job creaters) keep their current tax levels.
Class warfare, even though Obama is now considered "rich" he is not an employer, he does not spend any of his money creating businesses or earning his money in the free market. Obama is the ultimate Government *** success story. But it is this kind of history that makes Obama beleive Big Government can fix the lives of everyone else.
And he needs lots of tax money to enact his fixes on America.
The only debate is the Republicans and a few of the non-Progressive Democrats (some call them blue-dogs) are not willing to vote in support of Obama's plan to raist taxes on the "rich", so knowing ti will be a heated battle, Obama decided it was better to not go on the record for his tax plans until after the elections.
The good part for Obama is many of these returning Democrats will have lost their elections and will have nothing to lose so they will be more inclined to vote in support of Obama's increase in taxes than if they took the vote befopre the election while the Democrats think they have a chance to win.
phreakwars
New member
OK, that's the PLAN, so then why isn't that PLAN in action right now?
So who making less then $250,000 a year is taxed higher?
****, who OVER $250,000 is currently taxed higher?
Don't try the smoker and tanners bullshit, that is an OPTIONAL tax. It isn't forced on anybody.
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timesjoke
Active Members
It is, I have already given many examples, not my fault you blind yourself from the truth.
So let me get this straight, as long as the new higher taxes are on people or actions you personally do not like, that is not considered a new higher tax?
Really?
Well it is easy for you to say smokers and tanners deserve to be punished with higher taxes but what about the new taxes on medical supplies like new knee joints? Do people with a blown knee deserve higher taxes on the products they need? I guuess that is just a OPTION too...right? ****, using that logic, every tax is an OPTION.
The new healcare law has all sorts of hidden taxes in it, there is even a hidden tax on gold sellers Bender.
phreakwars
New member
So who making less then $250,000 a year is taxed higher?
****, who OVER $250,000 is currently taxed higher?
****, who OVER $250,000 is currently taxed higher?
timesjoke
Active Members
Other than the millions of people I already gave examples of Bender?
Other than abusing your Admin powers this is the only tool at you're disposal, you put on the blinders and pretend all the answers to you're questions are never posted. I have watched even IWS post example after example, hunderds of times like how you claimed the Republicans had no new ideas, IWS posted a huge number of them and you simply pretended IWS never posted even one.
I always answer the questions you ask, you on the other hand dodge 95% of the questions asked of you because you are too scared of the answer you would have to give.
I am still waiting on you to tell me why Obama's healthcare "reform" had to include the massive gift to the Unions making them exempt to the new taxes on their healthcare benefits.........
But wait, there is another great example of new taxes.
Anyone with a really good insurance policy is getting new taxes imposed on them (if they are not in a big Union). Do you consider that a new tax Bender?
I give you example after example and still you refuse to admit this fact.
timesjoke
Active Members
And I can agree with this completely. Bender has in the past sang some praise for Ron Paul, I wonder if he will see this point made by Ron Paul as a good example of raisong taxes too......but I seriously doubt it. Bender has this ability to wear blinders to any facts that do not agree with his "all powerful" Government agenda. I have debated with all kinds of people in my life but I have never met anyone who was so brainwashed that he would never admit to hard facts laid at his feet.
He could certainly argue that the higher taxes were needed, breaking a no taxes promise is always hard but not the end of the world if the President comes out, admits he was wrong and lays out his reasons for breaking that promise. Most people would understand, but trying to say new taxes are not new taxes?????
Bender really got me when he said new taxes on tobacco and tanning beds did not count as new taxes.......I don't care where the new tax is imposed, it is a new tax, but because the new tax is on something Bender does not like, that is not considered a new tax.......the Progressive mind is difficult to understand sometimes.
Anyway, even if we don't count the new taxes Bender says don't count, we still have new taxes on medical devices, new taxes on health insurance, and new taxes on gold sales, massive deficit spending, the list goes on for a long time but all of it represents increased taxes from consumers.
builder
New member
And you wonder why he thinks you're an idiot? Oh, and I hope you like long posts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domestic_policy_of_the_George_W._Bush_administration
President Bush implemented three tax cuts during his term in office: The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 (EGTRRA) reducing taxes by $1.6 Trillion Dollars, the Job Creation and Worker Assistance Act of 2002 (JCWA) reducing taxes by an additional $1.8 Trillion Dollars, and Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (JGTRRA) reducing taxes by $70 billion.
During his first term, Bush sought and obtained Congressional approval for three major tax cuts. These temporary cuts, scheduled to expire a decade after passage, increased the standard income tax deduction for married couples, eliminated the estate tax, and reduced marginal tax rates. The cuts are currently scheduled to expire a decade after passage. Bush has asked Congress to make the tax cuts permanent, but others want the cuts to be wholly or partially repealed even before their scheduled expiration, seeing the decrease in revenue while increasing spending as fiscally irresponsible.
Bush's supporters claim that the tax cuts increase the pace of economic recovery and job creation. They also claim that total benefits to wealthier individuals are a reflection of higher taxes paid. Individual income tax rate provisions in the 2001 law, for instance, created larger marginal tax rate decreases for people earning less than US$12,000 than any other earners.[51]
His opponents contest job prediction claims, primarily noting that the increase in job creation predicted by Bush's plan failed to materialize. They instead allege that the purpose of the tax cuts was intended to favor the wealthy and special interests, as the majority of benefit from the tax cut, in absolute terms, went to earners in the higher tax brackets. Bush's opponents additionally claim that the tax cuts are a major reason Bush reversed a national surplus into a historic deficit.
In an open letter to Bush in 2004, more than 100 professors of business and economics at U.S. business schools ascribed this "fiscal reversal" to Bush's "policy of slashing taxes - primarily for those at the upper reaches of the income distribution."[52]
By 2004, these cuts had reduced federal tax revenues, as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product, to the lowest level since 1959. The effect of simultaneous record increases in spending and tax reductions was to create record budget deficits in absolute terms, though as recently as 1993, the deficit was slightly larger than the current 3.6% of the GDP. In the last year of the Clinton administration, the federal budget showed an annual surplus of more than US$230 billion.[53] Under Bush, the government returned to deficit spending. The annual deficit reached an absolute record of US$374 billion in 2003 and then a further record of $413 billion in 2004.[54][55]
Spending
President Bush expanded public spending by 70 percent, more than double the increase under President Clinton. Bush was the first president in 176 years to continue an entire term without vetoing any legislation.[56]
The tax cuts, recession, and increases in outlays all contributed to record budget deficits during the Bush administration. The annual deficit reached record current-dollar levels of US$374 billion in 2003 and US$413 billion in 2004. National debt, the cumulative total of yearly deficits, rose from US$5.7 trillion (58% of GDP) to US$8.3 trillion (67% of GDP) under Bush,[57] as compared to the US$2.7 trillion total debt owed when Ronald Reagan left office, which was 52% of the GDP.[58]
According to the "baseline" forecast of federal revenue and spending by the Congressional Budget Office (in its January 2005 Baseline Budget Projections,[59] the budget deficits will decrease over the next several years. In this projection the deficit will fall to US$368 billion in 2005, US$261 billion in 2007, and US$207 billion in 2009, with a small surplus by 2012. The CBO noted, however, that this projection "omits a significant amount of spending that will occur this year — and possibly for some time to come — for U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and for other activities related to the global War on Terrorism." The projection also assumes that the Bush tax cuts "will expire as scheduled on December 31, 2010." If, as Bush has urged, the tax cuts were to be extended, then "the budget outlook for 2015 would change from a surplus of US$141 billion to a deficit of US$282 billion."
Federal spending in constant dollars increased under Bush by 26% in his first four and a half years. Non-defense spending increased 18% in that time.[60] Of the US$2.4 trillion budgeted for 2005, about US$450 billion are planned to be spent on defense. This level is generally comparable to the defense spending during the cold war.[61] Congress approved US$87 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan in November, and had approved an earlier US$79 billion package last spring. Most of those funds were for U.S. military operations in the two countries.
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I guess you now want to waffle on at length about how Obama should not be compared to Bush?
What would you prefer to compare him to? A bucket of rocks?
The only comparison a president has, it to his predecessor, who handed him the seat by losing the election, for grossly outspending his welcome, among other things.
You'll be back in the box within the month if you don't wise up and read, arsehole. :nuke:
timesjoke
Active Members
Bender calls me an idiot because he has nothing else to defend Progressive failures with than to turn to personal attacks. Being called an Idiot by someone like him is actually a massive compliment because he is admitting I have beaten him, lol.
Well, this is also a common tactic for failed Progressive actions, blame everyone else to take attention away from you're own failures.
Bush's actions have nothing to do with what Obama has done. Obama has all the power and had a super majority for a year and only lost that majority when he refused to listen to the American people. During that year Republicans could do nothing to stop anything the Democrats wanted to do and also during that time they accomplished nothing but harm to America. They now have to answer to that harm.
Compare Obama to Bush all you want, but Obama has not had a 9/11 to deal with. Bush handled terrorist attacks, floods, hurricanes, out of control wild fires, and two big wars on different Countries and still ended up with a small gain in jobs during his two terms. Obama will end up with a massive decline in jobs without any of those massive problems. Yes, Obama had the banking issue, but Obama is the guy who made it as bad as it is today, not Republicans. Democrats held Congress before the banking mess began; every bill Bush signed was put on his desk by Democrats for the last two years, not Republicans.
That would be a pretty good comparison considering Obama seems to be as dumb as a rock. Even his powerful speaking skills all Progressives fawned over turns out to be non-existent without his teleprompter. I remember Democrats all posting lists of mistakes made by Bush while speaking but none of you guys want to talk about the many verbal mistakes Obama makes even with his teleprompter.
lol......
No, there are other and much better ways to compare a President. The best way is to look at what he says and compare that to what he does. Obama made a lot of promises to bring people together, end the partisan fighting in Washington, to end earmarks, to not have former lobbyists in cabinet positions, not to increase any taxes on those making less than $250,000....the list goes on forever but the biggest lie that all of America is holding him accountable to is the lie he told to get his Stimulus bill passed.
Obama promised all of America that he would keep unemployment below 8% if he got his emergency Stimulus bill passed, he said it was so vital to save jobs that he would not even let anyone read the bill. Obama got 100% of what he asked for and did his spending of a trillion dollars keep unemployment below 8%? No it did not.
The next think we can compare Obama to is what he said he was going to do and what he did with his healthcare reform. We see how he gave massive deals and gifts to groups like Unions but screwed other people like hitting us with massive new taxes imposed on our healthcare benefits. We see recently that independent reviews put the cost of this monster closer to three trillion instead of the promised under 1 trillion for ten years, and we see how we can't keep the insurance policy and the doctors we had before as Obama promised.
Broken promise after broken promise is a very good way to compare the success or failure of a President.
I don't care about the box, facts are facts and the box is how Bender hides from the facts.
Fact, Obama raised taxes on people who make less than $250,000 a year, that is a broken promise, and not one progressive can bring themselves to admit that fact. As long as you are running from the facts, you prove you are brainwashed wackos who are only interested in a socialist agenda, no matter what you have to do or how many lies you have to tell.
builder
New member
http://ask.yahoo.com/20031001.html
According to an August 2003 article in the Washington Post, President Bush has spent all or part of 166 days during his presidency at his Crawford, Texas, ranch or en route. Add the time spent at or en route to the presidential retreat of Camp David and at the Bush family estate in Kennebunkport, Maine, and Bush has taken 250 days off as of August 2003. That's 27% of his presidency spent on vacation. Although to be fair, much of this time is classified as a "working vacation."
Bush isn't the first president to get away from his work. George Bush Sr. took all or part of 543 vacation days at Camp David and in Kennebunkport. Ronald Reagan spent 335 days at or en route to his Santa Barbara, California, ranch during his eight years in office. Of recent presidents, Jimmy Carter took the least days off -- only 79 days, which he usually spent at his home in Georgia. That's less than three weeks a year, which is closer to the average American's paid time off of 13 days per year.
What about Clinton? As of December 1999, President Bill Clinton had spent only 152 days on holiday during his two terms, according to CBS News. A former staffer noted Clinton was such a workaholic that "it almost killed Clinton to take one-week vacations during August." In 2000, Clinton cut his summer vacation short to just three days, so he and his wife could concentrate on her Senate race and fundraising for Democrats. While we couldn't find the exact tally for Clinton's last year in office, it's reasonable to expect he didn't increase his vacation rate. And in barely three years in office, George W. Bush has already taken more vacation than Clinton did in seven years.
Looks to me like repubs are lazy shitheads. Also looks to me like comparing prez's is a national pastime. Try and catch up, ******.
Now address the spending and taxation issues, along with the deficit and the attempt by the shrub to continue his buddy-assistance package past its use by date. ******. :thumbsup:
According to an August 2003 article in the Washington Post, President Bush has spent all or part of 166 days during his presidency at his Crawford, Texas, ranch or en route. Add the time spent at or en route to the presidential retreat of Camp David and at the Bush family estate in Kennebunkport, Maine, and Bush has taken 250 days off as of August 2003. That's 27% of his presidency spent on vacation. Although to be fair, much of this time is classified as a "working vacation."
Bush isn't the first president to get away from his work. George Bush Sr. took all or part of 543 vacation days at Camp David and in Kennebunkport. Ronald Reagan spent 335 days at or en route to his Santa Barbara, California, ranch during his eight years in office. Of recent presidents, Jimmy Carter took the least days off -- only 79 days, which he usually spent at his home in Georgia. That's less than three weeks a year, which is closer to the average American's paid time off of 13 days per year.
What about Clinton? As of December 1999, President Bill Clinton had spent only 152 days on holiday during his two terms, according to CBS News. A former staffer noted Clinton was such a workaholic that "it almost killed Clinton to take one-week vacations during August." In 2000, Clinton cut his summer vacation short to just three days, so he and his wife could concentrate on her Senate race and fundraising for Democrats. While we couldn't find the exact tally for Clinton's last year in office, it's reasonable to expect he didn't increase his vacation rate. And in barely three years in office, George W. Bush has already taken more vacation than Clinton did in seven years.
Looks to me like repubs are lazy shitheads. Also looks to me like comparing prez's is a national pastime. Try and catch up, ******.
Now address the spending and taxation issues, along with the deficit and the attempt by the shrub to continue his buddy-assistance package past its use by date. ******. :thumbsup:
timesjoke
Active Members
As the info you posted admitted, a lot of those times at his ranch was working vacations and even had many heads of State to his ranch for meetings.
Obama has spent all of his vacation time on expensive retreats, racking up huge costs for his personal entertainment during a time in Americans are hurting bad. How many Americans get any paid vacations much less the exuberant fancy vacations Obama takes? While Bush was taking a working vacation at his ranch, the cost was tiny in comparison to the vacations even Obama's wife loves to take jet setting all over Europe.
You want to talk deficits? How about how just Obama's Stimulus bill signed as his first big action as President cost America more in deficit spending than 7 years of war spending by Bush. That is a staggering number. 7 years of war spending on two Countries was outdone by Obama in his first month of office.
These are facts Builder, but I bet you can't let yourself admit to them now can you, lol?
Obama has spent all of his vacation time on expensive retreats, racking up huge costs for his personal entertainment during a time in Americans are hurting bad. How many Americans get any paid vacations much less the exuberant fancy vacations Obama takes? While Bush was taking a working vacation at his ranch, the cost was tiny in comparison to the vacations even Obama's wife loves to take jet setting all over Europe.
You want to talk deficits? How about how just Obama's Stimulus bill signed as his first big action as President cost America more in deficit spending than 7 years of war spending by Bush. That is a staggering number. 7 years of war spending on two Countries was outdone by Obama in his first month of office.
These are facts Builder, but I bet you can't let yourself admit to them now can you, lol?
builder
New member
Still reading FOX NUZ, fukknuckle? Here's the cost.
The news that President Bush's war on terrorism soon will have cost the U.S. taxpayers $1 trillion — and counting — is unlikely to spread much Christmas cheer in these tough economic times. A trio of recent reports — none by the Bush Administration — suggests that sometime early in the Obama presidency, spending on the wars started since 9/11 will pass the trillion-dollar mark. Even after adjusting for inflation, that's four times more than America spent fighting World War I, and more than 10 times the cost of 1991's Persian Gulf War (90% of which was paid for by U.S. allies). The war on terrorism looks set to surpass the costs the Korean and Vietnam wars combined, topped only by World War II's price tag of $3.5 trillion.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1868367,00.html#ixzz129j6qFR4
As for the stimulus package, if Bush hadn't sold all that incredibly bad debt he allowed mortgage companies to accumulate, to the last communist nation of any note, China, Obama wouldn't have had to cowtow to them with the bailout.
Can't believe how naive and absolutely ridiculously stoopid you really are.
The news that President Bush's war on terrorism soon will have cost the U.S. taxpayers $1 trillion — and counting — is unlikely to spread much Christmas cheer in these tough economic times. A trio of recent reports — none by the Bush Administration — suggests that sometime early in the Obama presidency, spending on the wars started since 9/11 will pass the trillion-dollar mark. Even after adjusting for inflation, that's four times more than America spent fighting World War I, and more than 10 times the cost of 1991's Persian Gulf War (90% of which was paid for by U.S. allies). The war on terrorism looks set to surpass the costs the Korean and Vietnam wars combined, topped only by World War II's price tag of $3.5 trillion.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1868367,00.html#ixzz129j6qFR4
As for the stimulus package, if Bush hadn't sold all that incredibly bad debt he allowed mortgage companies to accumulate, to the last communist nation of any note, China, Obama wouldn't have had to cowtow to them with the bailout.
Can't believe how naive and absolutely ridiculously stoopid you really are.
timesjoke
Active Members
The story you posted from the liberal run Times was admitted to be an estimate even by them, final numbers came in and proved that Bush's wars over 7 years cost less than the Stimulus bill and it only took Obama one month to spend that much too.
Even if they were equal Builder, Bush took 7 years to spend what Obama added to the deficit in his first month of office, you can't see the problem with that? Add to that the new real cost of the healthcare law being 3 trillion and you start to see just how out of control Obama is at spending money we don't have.
And again, the last two years of Bush's Presidency was with a Democrat controlled Congress. Everything Bush signed was put on his desk by Democrats, not Republicans so any issue you have with the TARP or anything elsae you can put at the feet of Democrats, not Republicans.
Even if they were equal Builder, Bush took 7 years to spend what Obama added to the deficit in his first month of office, you can't see the problem with that? Add to that the new real cost of the healthcare law being 3 trillion and you start to see just how out of control Obama is at spending money we don't have.
And again, the last two years of Bush's Presidency was with a Democrat controlled Congress. Everything Bush signed was put on his desk by Democrats, not Republicans so any issue you have with the TARP or anything elsae you can put at the feet of Democrats, not Republicans.
builder
New member
And to copy your MO, lets bore the absolute ***** out of the readers with the rest of the facts, shall we?
The cost of sending a single soldier to fight for a year in Afghanistan or Iraq is about $775,000 — three times more than in other recent wars, says a new report from the private but authoritative Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). A large chunk of the increase is a result of the Administration's cramming new military hardware into the emergency budget bills it has been using to pay for the wars. (See pictures of U.S. troops in Iraq.)
These costs, of course, pale alongside the price paid by the nearly 5,000 U.S. troops who have lost their lives in the conflicts — not to mention the wounded — and the families of all the casualties. And President Bush insists that their sacrifice and the expenditure on the wars have helped prevent a repeat of 9/11. "We could not afford to wait for the terrorists to attack again," he said last week at the Army War College. "So we launched a global campaign to take the fight to the terrorists abroad, to dismantle their networks, to dry up their financing and find their leaders and bring them to justice."
But many Americans may suffer a moment of sticker shock from the conclusions of the CSBA report and similar assessments from the Government Accounting Office (GAO) and Congressional Research Service (CRS), which make clear that the nearly $1 trillion already spent is only a down payment on the war's long-term costs. The trillion-dollare figure does not, for example, include long-term health care for veterans, thousands of whom have suffered crippling wounds, or the interest payments on the money borrowed by the Federal Government to fund the war. The bottom lines of the three assessments vary: the CSBA study says $904 billion has been spent so far, while the GAO says the Pentagon alone has spent $808 billion through last September. The CRS study says the wars have cost $864 billion, but CRS didn't factor inflation into its calculations.
Sifting through Pentagon data, the CSBA study breaks down the total costs of the war on terrorism as $687 billion for Iraq, $184 billion for Afghanistan and $33 billion for homeland security. By 2018, depending on how many U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan and Iraq, the total cost is projected to likely be between $1.3 trillion and $1.7 trillion. On the safe assumption that the wars are being waged with borrowed money, interest payments raise the cost by an additional $600 billion through 2018.
Shortly before the Iraq war began, White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey earned a rebuke from within the Administration when he said the war could cost as much as $200 billion. "It's not knowable what a war or conflict like that would cost," Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld said. "You don't know if it's going to last two days or two weeks or two months. It certainly isn't going to last two years."
According to the CSBA study, the Administration has fudged the war's true costs in two ways. Borrowing money to fund the wars is one way of conducting them on the cheap, at least in the short term. But just as pernicious has been the Administration's novel way of budgeting for them. Previous wars were funded through the annual appropriations process, with emergency spending — which gets far less congressional scrutiny — used only for the initial stages of a conflict. But the Bush Administration relied on such supplemental appropriations to fund the wars until 2008, seven years after invading Afghanistan and five years after storming Iraq.
"For these wars, we have relied on supplemental appropriations for far longer than in the case of past conflicts," says Steven Kosiak of the CSBA, one of Washington's top defense-budget analysts. "Likewise, we have relied on borrowing to cover more of these costs than we have in earlier wars — which will likely increase the ultimate price we have to pay." That refusal to spell out the full cost can lead to unwise spending increases elsewhere in the federal budget or unwarranted tax cuts. "A sound budgeting process forces policymakers to recognize the true costs of their policy choices," Kosiak adds. "Not only did we not raise taxes, we cut taxes and significantly expanded spending."
The bottom line: Bush's projections of future defense spending "substantially understate" just how much money it will take to run Obama's Pentagon, the CSBA says in its report. Luckily, Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to hang around to try to iron out the problem.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1868367,00.html#ixzz129oRMOcz
The cost of sending a single soldier to fight for a year in Afghanistan or Iraq is about $775,000 — three times more than in other recent wars, says a new report from the private but authoritative Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA). A large chunk of the increase is a result of the Administration's cramming new military hardware into the emergency budget bills it has been using to pay for the wars. (See pictures of U.S. troops in Iraq.)
These costs, of course, pale alongside the price paid by the nearly 5,000 U.S. troops who have lost their lives in the conflicts — not to mention the wounded — and the families of all the casualties. And President Bush insists that their sacrifice and the expenditure on the wars have helped prevent a repeat of 9/11. "We could not afford to wait for the terrorists to attack again," he said last week at the Army War College. "So we launched a global campaign to take the fight to the terrorists abroad, to dismantle their networks, to dry up their financing and find their leaders and bring them to justice."
But many Americans may suffer a moment of sticker shock from the conclusions of the CSBA report and similar assessments from the Government Accounting Office (GAO) and Congressional Research Service (CRS), which make clear that the nearly $1 trillion already spent is only a down payment on the war's long-term costs. The trillion-dollare figure does not, for example, include long-term health care for veterans, thousands of whom have suffered crippling wounds, or the interest payments on the money borrowed by the Federal Government to fund the war. The bottom lines of the three assessments vary: the CSBA study says $904 billion has been spent so far, while the GAO says the Pentagon alone has spent $808 billion through last September. The CRS study says the wars have cost $864 billion, but CRS didn't factor inflation into its calculations.
Sifting through Pentagon data, the CSBA study breaks down the total costs of the war on terrorism as $687 billion for Iraq, $184 billion for Afghanistan and $33 billion for homeland security. By 2018, depending on how many U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan and Iraq, the total cost is projected to likely be between $1.3 trillion and $1.7 trillion. On the safe assumption that the wars are being waged with borrowed money, interest payments raise the cost by an additional $600 billion through 2018.
Shortly before the Iraq war began, White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey earned a rebuke from within the Administration when he said the war could cost as much as $200 billion. "It's not knowable what a war or conflict like that would cost," Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld said. "You don't know if it's going to last two days or two weeks or two months. It certainly isn't going to last two years."
According to the CSBA study, the Administration has fudged the war's true costs in two ways. Borrowing money to fund the wars is one way of conducting them on the cheap, at least in the short term. But just as pernicious has been the Administration's novel way of budgeting for them. Previous wars were funded through the annual appropriations process, with emergency spending — which gets far less congressional scrutiny — used only for the initial stages of a conflict. But the Bush Administration relied on such supplemental appropriations to fund the wars until 2008, seven years after invading Afghanistan and five years after storming Iraq.
"For these wars, we have relied on supplemental appropriations for far longer than in the case of past conflicts," says Steven Kosiak of the CSBA, one of Washington's top defense-budget analysts. "Likewise, we have relied on borrowing to cover more of these costs than we have in earlier wars — which will likely increase the ultimate price we have to pay." That refusal to spell out the full cost can lead to unwise spending increases elsewhere in the federal budget or unwarranted tax cuts. "A sound budgeting process forces policymakers to recognize the true costs of their policy choices," Kosiak adds. "Not only did we not raise taxes, we cut taxes and significantly expanded spending."
The bottom line: Bush's projections of future defense spending "substantially understate" just how much money it will take to run Obama's Pentagon, the CSBA says in its report. Luckily, Defense Secretary Robert Gates plans to hang around to try to iron out the problem.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1868367,00.html#ixzz129oRMOcz