Bush is the biggest spender in history. Medicaire boondoggle. Iraq boondoggle. Federalizing of education. He spends and spends -- and still the Democrats denounce him. "Moderate" Republicans like Bush never seem to learn that they can spend like Democrats but the liberals will hate them anyway. All they're accomplishing is making life harder for the middle class taxpayers who have to pay the bill.
Besides spending billions, Presidente Bush is saddling us taxpayers with additional debt to support, educate and give medical care to millions of illegal aliens who have entered the USA on his watch. Our pockets are being picked at both ends...
Bush's ownership society and reforming the tax code are dead in the water. Gov't continues to become bigger and more unconstitutional.
Why not a few billion $$ for our own border security and immigration, too impractical and expensive?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1522382/posts
Money well spent...
Well you don't want to complain. The article by William F. Buckley dared to bring up some concerns and he's thrown under the bus here to be replaced by 'historian' Vic Hansen as a supposed authority.
You're right though. The spending continues to grow. Eventually it has to top 1 trillion. Will that be the point fiscal 'conservatives' start to complain?
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Not a dime more until the Iraqis settle down and play nice!
And all this is off budget, so it doesn't get counted in the 400+ billion deficit we run up per year. This war is definitely NOT worth what we are spending for it. If we were at least getting cheap oil, the administration might make a case for this grotesque war expenditure, but it has only served to jack up oil prices by $25/bbl. costing everyone in the nation even more money. It's a true lose-lose situation and conservatives in Congress ought to pull the plug on it.
Chamberlain Buff, Who passed the two largest tax cuts in US History? Once again you are DESPERATELY flailing around for anything to try an justify your idiotic Neo-Isolationist positions. Just how much do you suppose a second 9-11 style attack would cost us? Sorry if the rest of us understand that National Security is THE job of the Feds so it is one of the FEW things they SHOULD be spending money on.
Around $255 billion as of last October, according to The Congressional Research Service
Wrong again. Try GW Bush.
O come on already were's this madness going to stop.I
DONT WANT PAY TO FIX THE FREAKING MOSQUE.
This is crazy something has gotta give.
I hope someday they discover oil in Iraq
Yes, the cost of national defense is an irksome thing. It would be nice if we didn't have enemies in this world, foreign and domestic.
Counter Insurgency (or in this case, Counter Terrorism) is a strange bastard style of war. It is not total war but it is also more then the Leftist" Police matter" One of the thing most old Cast Iron Conservatives choose to forget is the political aspect. Iraq was doable. We had the political consensus to do it. So since we needed a kill zone we could suck the terrorists into and we needed to get the American people to support the mission, there was no other choice BUT Iraq.
Want to really blow the Leftists minds? Tell them this. Even if Al Gore won in 2000 and 9-11 happened the USA would STILL be doing the same thing now in Iraq. Iraq was doable militarily and politically. There was no other place for the US to go after Afganistan. Iraq is basically the same deal as the invasion of Italy was in 1943
Here in a nutshell, is the MILTIARY reason for Iraq. The War on Terrorism is different sort of war. In the war on Terrorism, we have a hidden foe, spread out across a geographically diverse area, with covert sources of supply. Since we cannot go everywhere they hide out, in fact often cannot even locate them until the engage us, we need to draw them out of hiding into a kill zone. Iraq is that kill zone. That is the true brilliance of the Iraq strategy. We draw the terrorists out of their world wide hiding places onto a battlefield they have to fight on for political reasons (The "Holy" soil of the Arabian peninsula) where they have to pit their weakest ability (Conventional Military combat power) against our greatest strength (ability to call down unbelievable amounts of firepower) where they will primarily have to fight other forces (the Iraqi Security forces) in a battlefield that is hostile to guerrilla warfare. (Iraqi-mostly open terrain as opposed to guerrilla friendly areas like the mountains of Afghanistan or the jungles of SE Asia).
There are other reasons to do Iraq but that is the MILITARY reason we are in Iraq. We have taken, an maintain the initiative from the Terrorists. They are playing OUR game on ground of OUR choosing.
Problem is Counter Insurgency is SLOW and painful. Often a case of 3 steps forward, two steps back. I often worry that the American people have neither the maturity, nor the intellect" to understand. It's so much easier to spew made for TV slogans like "No Blood for Oil" or "We support the Troops, bring them home" then to actually THINK. Problem is these people have NO desire to co-exist with us. They see all this PC posturing by the Hysteric Left as a sign that we are weak. Since they want us dead, weakness encourages them. They think their "god" will bless them for killing Westerners.
So we can covert to Islam, die or kill them. Iraq is about killing enough of them to make the rest realize we are serious. See in the Arab world the USA is considered a big wimp. We have run away so many times. Lebanon, the Kurds, the Iraqis in 1991, the Iranians, Somalia, Clinton all thru the 1990s etc etc etc. The Jihadists think we will run again. In fact they are counting on it. That way they can run around screaming "We beat the American just like the Russians, come join us in Jihad" and recruit the next round of "holy warriors". Iraq is also a show place where we show the Muslim world that there are a lines they cannot cross. On 9-11 they crossed that line and we can, and will, destroy them for it.
The real waste of money is social welfare and catering to illegal immigrants. Our military needs all the money it can get.
And let us not forget the segment who are just itching for us to go and invade Iran...
The administration has tipped it's hand. All they have right now is to try and get the american people afraid again... Expect elevated threat announcements come spring...
And other federal agencies and programs are being starved for funds now to pay for the war. NASA is canceling missions to keep shuttle flying and pay for CEV. We are looking at having NO MANNED ACCESS TO SPACE for 5 - 10 years soon.