Put It On The Card
The Iraq war is the first U.S. war that has been financed entirely on credit. When the war started, the Bush administration said it would cost no more than $60 billion. (Read My Lips … No New Taxes … Something sound Familiar here?) At that time (the start of the war) the U.S. was in budget deficit, so the administration had to borrow to finance the invasion.
About 40% of this money was borrowed from China and other international investors (War is good business, invest your son or daughter), the first time since the Revolutionary War. At the same time, the administration and Congress did another “stupid thing” they lowered taxes.
Which I am not complaining about here, I do hate taxes in any way shape, form or manner. Hell, it is downright “Un-American” to not hate taxes, everyone knows that. But going to war on a deficit and borrowing and then lowering the taxes, well that just isn’t the way to do it.
Wait, it gets even better, rates go down! Much to the glee of the Average American the Fed also lowered the prime interest rates, which encouraged Middle Class Americans to go on a consumption binge, that was mainly fueled by credit cards. Now things are not so rosy, some of these very same people are now living in empty appliance cartons, or under bridges in the greater L.A. Basin.
Nearly half the sub prime mortgage loans written in 2005 have ended in foreclosure. Cleveland has the highest rates in the nation, another thing they will have to live down. Southwest Airlines just borrowed $600 million to buy jet fuel, things are not going well in River City. I can no longer afford a visit to Starbucks on Thursday afternoon.
Just to put this in perspective, the federal government borrows 600 billion each year to make up what they don’t bring in tax revenues. That doesn’t show up in the deficit as it is easily manipulated. The difference is in things like the wars that we fund “off budget” that makes it appear the deficit is shrinking …or was … until this year.
Last I heard, our government is collecting something like 2 trillion dollars from us in taxes this year. There are a thousand billon in a trillion, and a thousand million in a billion. Two trillion has 12 zeroes. It looks like this: $2,000,000,000,000.00. Dog gone, the first thing you know, we will be talking about some REAL money here folks.
My pet peeve, when GWB’s first budget took effect on Oct. 1, 2001 the national debt stood at 5.806 trillion dollars. On Friday, the debt stood at 9.364 trillion. That’s a difference of 3.558 trillion dollars in a little over 6 1/2 years. Divided the 3.558 by 5.806 and you will see that it is a 61 % increase in the national debt during that time. Or, put another way, if you divide the 3.558 by the total debt of 9.364 you will find that about 38 cents of EVERY dollar owed by the federal government was borrowed under GWB’s budgets beginning on 10/1/2001. Not a sustainable financial position.
That’s why the dollar is fried and soon only things like gold and silver…..or a beast system currency will be the only thing of value. There is no such thing as a “free war” the United States and the rest of the world will be paying the price of this massive boon-doggle for years, possibly decades, to come.
It is high time that we figure it out. It is pretty simple really. We (The United States of America) are not all powerful and we ought to get used to it. We are slowly degrading ourselves to the status of a third rate debt ridden country (if we haven’t already) and it is time to step down off our high horse. It is no longer possible for us to impose our idea of how people ought to govern themselves in a Muslim country, and/or a oil based economy in the Persian Gulf or any other place in the world.
Establish a bogus Democracy in the sand.
Adopt and feed an entire country while they sit back and put billions in the bank.
Stop the Chinese and the Soviets from developing their oil fields.
Mission Accomplished …. That’s Priceless.
000
