Wars Cost $15 Billion a Month, GOP Senator Says

Washington Post ^ | Thursday, December 27, 2007 | Walter Pincus

[canuck_conservative]

The latest estimate of the growing costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worldwide battle against terrorism -- nearly $15 billion a month -- came last week from one of the Senate's leading proponents of a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq. "This cost of this war is approaching $15 billion a month, with the Army spending $4.2 billion of that every month," Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska), the ranking Republican on the Appropriations defense subcommittee, said in a little-noticed floor speech Dec. 18. His remarks came in support of adding $70 billion to the omnibus fiscal 2008 spending legislation to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, as well as counterterrorism activities, for the six months from Oct. 1, 2007, through March 31 of next year. While most of the public focus has been on the political fight over troop levels, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) reported this month that the Bush administration's request for the 2008 fiscal year of $189.3 billion for Defense Department operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and worldwide counterterrorism activities was 20 percent higher than for fiscal 2007 and 60 percent higher than for fiscal 2006. Pentagon spokesmen would not comment last week on Stevens's figure but said their latest estimate for monthly spending for Iraq, Afghanistan and the war on terrorism was $11.7 billion as of Sept. 30, the end of fiscal 2007.

[rabscuttle385]

Ask an average American if he'd rather have us in Iraq or get a check for $10,000 for his family, and I think most would choose the latter.

Ten thousand dollars, while a tidy sum of money, is completely worthless if a family member is roasted alive in a burning skyscraper or jetliner (see 9/11 WTC and Pentagon attacks).

What Americans pay, in terms of defense, to ensure our collective domestic security is...a bargain, considering that every day, our soldiers and Marines pay a much steeper price and, in some cases, the ultimate price.

So, to answer that question: I would rather that we finish the war in Iraq. Ten thousand dollars from the Federals is worthless to me if we run away from Iraq: surrender such as the Democrats propose effectively wastes the money that we have poured into Iraq, dishonors the tremendous sacrifice made by our armed forces and their families, and invites more attacks on American soil by terrorists (and the foreign States that sponsor and encourage them).

[Does so]

"... i’m not on Paul’s side..."

And that's a good thing...

[Kozak]

And how much of that is personnel costs, fuel and supplies, and replacement of expendable material that would occur in peace time as well?

[OCCASparky]

And most of that is going into “improvements” on his house. Dude is a corrupt hack RINO who needed to go 20 years ago.

[metesky]

Federal budget = $3 trillion a year

Fighting and killing our enemies = $180 million a year

A drop in the bucket and money well spent.

[canuck_conservative]

Federal budget = $3 trillion a year

Federal revenues = 2.8 trillion a year



Difference = $ 200,000,000,000 a year ....

... that's a big problem.

[wastedyears]

A post I had made was “adjust 1944 for inflation then get back to me.”

What I mean is adjust the expenditures for WWII to today’s dollars, then tell me if the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing too much.

[metesky]

... that's a big problem.

It may be a problem, whether big or small... But as several have pointed out to you, It's not your freakin' problem!

Canuckistanians, MYOB.

[Gondring]

I would choose the former. Ten grand won't do me any good if I'm dead, or the economy is shot because Chicago got nuked.

False dilemma.

Do you really, honestly believe that if you didn't spend $10,000, you'd be dead or we'd have a city nuked?

Frankly, I think that I'd be alive without Chicago nuked without a slim dime being spent, but regardless, there is, of course, some cost for security and it is prudent to address the situation rather than ignore it. However, recall that the Administration told us it would cost <$100 each....and now we're up to $10,000. I don't know about you, but if someone says something will be $100 and the bill comes back later as $10,000, I'd suspect the person is either dishonest--or doesn't know what he's doing.

Accepting Sec. Rumsfeld's resignation earlier is one way we could have saved lives and money, by not letting the insurgency take hold before admitting it was there (and by recognizing the mission had changed from offensive combat to counterinsurgency and the forces/stragegy/tactics had to change correspondingly). The wanton waste in the way we threw money around to villages is another--villages became experts at soaking us by sabotaging our own efforts because we'd throw more dollars their way the worse condition they were in. Etc.

[Ann Archy]

I guess Steven’s would rather use that money to fix his house!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Money well spent, IMHO.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

[jrooney]

Yes, last weekend on meet the press he was asked about by Tim Russert. Russert said he called Reagan a traitor too. Paul would only deny, weakly, that he called Reagan a traitor. He would not deny he called him a dramatic failure. There have been several threads here on FR in the last week talking about it.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1943636/posts

Meet the Press transcript - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22342301/

MR. RUSSERT: "You're running as a Republican. In your--on your Web site, in your brochures, you make this claim: "Principled Leadership. Ron was also one of only four Republican Congressmen to endorse Ronald Reagan for president against Gerald Ford in" '76. There's a photograph of you, Ronald Reagan on the right, heralding your support of Ronald Reagan. And yet you divorced yourself from Ronald Reagan. You said this: "Although he was once an ardent supporter of President Reagan, Paul now speaks of him as a traitor leading the country into debt and conflicts around the world. "I want to totally disassociate myself from the Reagan Administration." And you go on to The Dallas Morning News: "Paul now calls Reagan a `dramatic failure.'"

READ THE WHOLE INTERVIEW, IT IS STUNNING.

[NeoCaveman]

This cost of this war is approaching $15 billion a month, with the Army spending $4.2 billion of that every month," Sen. Ted Stevens (Alaska), the ranking Republican on the Appropriations defense subcommittee, said in a little-noticed floor speech Dec. 18.

Which is severely cutting into his yummy yummy pork and his bridges to nowhere.

[Gondring]

So glad we have President Bush in there, being a fiscal conservative and keeping the government small and spending in check. </sarc>

[NeoCaveman]

At $180 billion every year, how long before the US goes effectively bankrupt?

As we add 15 trillion dollars in economic output every year, I'd say we could do it forever. It's 1.2% of GDP.

[Gondring]

I guess Steven’s would rather use that money to fix his house!

Huh?

[Gondring]

Fighting and killing our enemies = $180 million a year

A drop in the bucket and money well spent.

And I suppose you pay $1000 for those $1 lottery tickets, too, eh?

BILLION a month. The war is $10,000 per American family (predominantly for Iraq).

I guarantee that FReepers would be going NUTS if Clintoon had claimed a war was going to cost us less than $100 and it went to $10,000, and was against a country that had been keeping radical Islam in check, etc. I'm not saying the war was unjustified, but I do think that any honest FReeper would admit that there would have been outrage against Clinton for this sort of mismanagement of the situation.

[goldstategop]

Keeping our country safe is expensive. But we haven't had another 9/11 since we went to war. The Left forgets that its more effective to fight them there than here.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[Gondring]

We have a saying down here in the States: "Millions for defenseoffense, but not a penny for tributedefense."