Posted on 07/30/2004 2:29:07 PM PDT by ambrose
Firehouse Rot John Kerry's cheapest shot.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Friday, July 30, 2004, at 10:15 AM PT
Allowance made for choreography, stagecraft, and all the rest of it, there need be no doubt that the Democrats in Boston sincerely wish to "project" the idea of compassion for the underdog, inclusiveness in general, and perhaps above all a degree of care and measure in foreign policy. The AIDS victim in South Africa, or the Bangladeshi woman hoping for a new well: These are sufferers and strugglers who would get genuine applause whether it was Barack Obama mentioning them or not. Of course we understand that our future is bound up with theirs.
But in the last few weeks I have been registering one of the sourest and nastiest and cheapest notes to have been struck for some time. In a recent article about anti-Bush volunteers going door-to-door in Pennsylvania, often made up of campaigners from the Service Employees International Union, or SEIU—one of the country's largest labor unions—the New York Times cited a leaflet they were distributing, which said that the president was spending money in Iraq that could be better used at home. The mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, recently made the same point, proclaiming repeatedly that the Bay Area was being starved of funds that were being showered on Iraqis. (He obviously doesn't remember the line of his city's most famous columnist, the late Herb Caen, who referred to San Francisco as "Baghdad by the Bay.") These are only two public instances of what's become quite a general whispering campaign. And then on Thursday night, Sen. Kerry quite needlessly proposed a contradiction between "opening firehouses in Baghdad and shutting them in the United States of America." Talk about a false alternative. To borrow the current sappy language of "making us safer": Who would feel more secure if they knew that we weren't spending any tax dollars on Iraqi firehouses?
There is something absolutely charmless and self-regarding about this pitch, and I wish I could hear a senior Democrat disowning it. It is no better, in point of its domestic tone and appeal, than the rumor of the welfare mother stopping her Cadillac to get vodka on food stamps. In point of its international implications, it also suggests the most vulgar form of isolationism, not to say insularity.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...
I don't think you quite understand. Perhaps you've never run a business - in general, a business doesn't get to collect money until it has completed a job. Saying it is unspent is accurate, but misleading. The money can be allocated and committed and still be unspent, until the job is complete. That doesn't mean that there's no work going on.
As an analogy, let's say you go to a restaurant for dinner. You have a meal, and order some coffee and desert. Your dinner money is still "unspent" at this point, even though the job of serving you dinner is done, and you have eaten. It's only when you are completely finished with your meal that you actually "spend" the money. However, the money is allocated when you decide you're going to buy a meal, and committed when you order. That money isn't sitting around waiting for something to spend it on - and you haven't gone hungry.
I did not at any time say I had the details of the contracts. If you want the details of the contracts you need to file a Freedom of Information Act request. What I am saying is that I know how business is generally conducted, and I also know how left-wing propagandists like Krugman use selected truths to leave readers with false impressions... like the idea that we're sitting on a huge pile of money meant for Iraq reconstruction projects but are not doing anything with it. We're doing as much with that money as you do with your own between the time you order dinner and the time you pay the check.
This particular lefty lie has been more thoroughly deconstructed elsewhere, if you're really interested... I know I've seen it refuted here on FR back when that Krugman column was written.
Congress provided $18.4 billion of our tax money to be spent on Iraqi reconstruction. Very little of that money has been spent. Instead the Coalition Provisional Authority used money obtained from the sale of Iraqi oil...and accounted for it in a sloppy manner, if at all.
Separately, the U.N. gave the U.S. the right to disburse Iraqi oil-for-food monies...on condition that proper accounting was done. I believe Krugman later says that Chalabi claims we didn't do so...and he doesn't know whether or not to believe Chalabi but prefers to wait until Volker makes his report.
Often people are paid in stages, as parts of a project are completed. That's especially true of large, government funded projects. How else would companies be able to purchase supplies and pay workmen and sub-contractors?
It's difficult to know what Krugman is talking about since he doesn't cite his source but the only way his claim makes any sense (to me) is if the source indicates that few projects have been put out to bid, and even fewer contracts signed.
Commitment - Administrative reservation of funds placed so a contract can be negotiated.
It is followed by an
obligation - "contract"
I have a tough time believing that a construction company would not be submitting 93s at least quarterly. Perhaps you are correct that no payments are being made until completion. May be a good guard against contractor default, however. Can't know without seeing the contracts. Once critical infrastructure has been established via single source no bid contracts, the regular procurement process resumes. Takes a long time to let a contract through the Federal government.
The red-flag clue that what you read is a piece of enemy propaganda is at the top: "by Paul Krugman". (The other is at the top and bottom of the page: "The New York Times".)
Check out keyword "krugman" here on FR and get a good look at the history of things this guy has said. He's not even consistent with his own words, to say nothing of how wildly his columns diverge from reality.
I don't need or want red-flag clues. I'm an adult, capable of listening to all sides and deciding on the merits. All sides means all sides. Krugman is capable and knowledgeable, certainly worthy of an honest hearing.
Check out keyword "krugman" here on FR and get a good look at the history of things this guy has said
Krugman has as good a track record as any other first-line economist and pundit. Most on FR are not capable of judging for themselves but must run to National Review to see what Luskin said. In my view, as I've said repeatedly, Luskin is nothing but a tire-biter, a nit-picker.
The US has spent ZERO Iraqi dollars on any of their earmarked projects. The Interim Government has had access to those funds since they were turned over on 6/28. The UN refused to release the funds until the audit was complete. All this could be found on the CPA website during the occupation phase. It ended on 6/28 and the CPA left Iraq.
No liberallarry, you & Krugman both miss the point. Halliburton is one of the few companies in the whole world that could handle a job this big. Your name should be myopiclarry.
Eventually experience will train you, like it trained me, to give Krugman no more creedence than one would to Maureen Dowd. Krugman has been saying the economy is getting worse for years, while all the time it has been getting better.
Would you post a link please? I'd very much like to read this stuff.
Prior to reconstruction, engineering, surveying, ordering equipment must take place prior to ground even being broken
Krugman is knowledgeable. He knows this. But he is capable of referring to only those sources which confirm his bias...and of drawing conclusions well beyond what the facts warrant. I've seen him do both.
The US has spent ZERO Iraqi dollars on any of their earmarked projects.
That would mean that Krugman is flat-out wrong in his assertion that the Provisional Authority has been spending Iraqi oil monies. I find that difficult to believe. There must be more to it.
You are correct about Halliburton. They're one of the few companies in the world capable of doing the dangerous and difficult job they've undertaken. They should be extremely well paid. So far the accusations against them amount to little more than guilt-by-association, partisan attacks, and jealosy. That's my opinion.
But I'm just a retired guy sitting around in a remote location. I don't take my opinion all that seriously.
No I didn't think you were Krugman. So who do you think should have been awarded the contract to rebuild Iraq?
And they can't if they ever want to use any congressionally appropriated funds on the same project. To do so would be augmenting the appropriation and a clear violation of federal appropriations law.
Wow. It took 'til post 16 for someone to point out that the federal government has no business spending money on firehouses to begin with! Or schools, for that matter!
Wow. It took 'til post 16 for someone to point out that the federal government has no business spending money on firehouses to begin with! Or schools, for that matter!
If you can't see the difference between the federal government financing the building of Hoover Dam or the Interstate rd system, and building local firehouses, then you are beyond help. Or maybe you're being intentionally obtuse.
Halliburton seems fine. The only - possibly legitimate - claim I've seen is that it was a no-bid contract so awarded because of time-pressures. If true, that's fine also. I don't see how political favoritism can be avoided in such situations so I've no problem with it.
The remaining questions concern oversight and performance. Both ongoing concerns and legitimately so.
The differences aren't as great as you make out...or as clear. That's why I cited rural hospitals as an example.
Projects like Hoover Dam or the Interstate system are clearly of national value and impossible for smaller entities to finance.
But it's also in the interests of the nation to have medical care available to most of the populace and its not at all clear that poorer, rural communities would ever have been able to build those hospitals on their own.
Nope, he's completely wrong. Go to the CPA website. It hasn't been updated since they left but I imagine it's still there. I used to read it weekly to see what was going on. Also check the many press releases on the DOD and the CPA press conferences, and right here on FR Ragtime Cowgirl's posts.
Here's a nice rebuttal to one of Krugman's earlier articles on the shortcomings of the Provisional authority;
I find it to be completely believable. I never would have found it had I not posted to this thread.
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