The Trillion Dollar War

[Rodeo]

We could have fixed social security for the next 75 years. Instead ....

George Bush's Trillion-Dollar War

By BOB HERBERT

Call it the trillion-dollar war.

George W. Bush's war in Iraq was never supposed to be particularly expensive. Administration types tossed out numbers like $50 billion and $60 billion. When Lawrence Lindsey, the president's chief economic adviser, said the war was likely to cost $100 billion to $200 billion, he was fired.

Some in the White House tried to spread the fantasy that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for the war. Paul Wolfowitz, the former deputy defense secretary and a fanatical hawk, told Congress that Iraq was "a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."

The president and his hot-for-war associates were as wrong about the money as they were about the weapons of mass destruction.

Now comes a study by Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist at Columbia University, and a colleague, Linda Bilmes of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, that estimates the "true costs" of the war at more than $1 trillion, and possibly more than $2 trillion.

"Even taking a conservative approach and assuming all U.S. troops return by 2010, we believe the true costs exceed a trillion dollars," the authors say.

The study was released earlier this year but has not gotten much publicity. The analysis by Professors Stiglitz and Bilmes goes beyond the immediate costs of combat operations to include other direct and indirect costs of the war that, in some cases, the government will have to shoulder for many years.

These costs, the study says, "include disability payments to veterans over the course of their lifetimes, the cost of replacing military equipment and munitions, which are being consumed at a faster-than-normal rate, the cost of medical treatment for returning Iraqi war veterans, particularly the more than 7,000 [service members] with brain, spinal, amputation and other serious injuries, and the cost of transporting returning troops back to their home bases."

The study also notes that Defense Department expenditures that were not directly appropriated for Iraq have grown by more than 5 percent since the war began. But a portion of that increase has been spent "on support for the war in Iraq, including significantly higher recruitment costs, such as nearly doubling the number of recruiters, paying recruitment bonuses of up to $40,000 for new enlistees and paying special bonuses and other benefits, up to $150,000 for current Special Forces troops that re-enlist."

"Another cost to the government," the study says, "is the interest on the money that it has borrowed to finance the war."

Among the things taken into account by the study are some of the difficult-to-quantify but very real costs inflicted by the war on the American economy and society, such as the effect of the war on oil prices, and the economic loss that results from the many thousands of Americans wounded and killed in the war.

The study does not address the substantial costs of the war borne by Iraq or by any other countries besides the United States.

In an interview, Mr. Stiglitz said that about $560 billion, which is a little more than half of the study's conservative estimate of the cost of the war, would have been enough to "fix" Social Security for the next 75 years. If one were thinking in terms of promoting democracy in the Middle East, he said, the money being spent on the war would have been enough to finance a "mega-mega-mega-Marshall Plan," which would have been "so much more" effective than the invasion of Iraq.

It's not easy to explain just how much money $1 trillion really is. Imagine a stack of bills worth $1 million that is roughly six inches high. (Think big denominations — a mix of $100 bills and $1,000 bills, mostly $1,000's.) If the six-inch stack were enlarged to the point where it was worth $1 billion, it would be as tall as the Washington Monument, about 500 feet. If it were worth $1 trillion, the stack would be 95 miles high.

Ms. Bilmes said that the $1 trillion we're spending on Iraq amounts to about $10,000 for every household in the U.S.

At his press conference on Tuesday, President Bush made it clear that whatever the cost, American forces would not be leaving Iraq soon. When asked whether a day would come when there were no U.S. forces in Iraq, he said that decision would be made by future presidents and future governments of Iraq.

The meter's running. We're at a trillion dollars, and counting.

[Nathans_Dad]

Just think how many Six Million Dollar Men we could have made...that guy could win the war all by himself.

[kach22i]

You can't trust a republican with your money.
Howard Dean

[turbo6bar]

You can't trust any politician with your money.

[legion]

Originally posted by Rodeo
We could have fixed social security for the next 75 years. Instead ....

So you'd prefer a wealth-distribution pyramid scheme to....living?

[Jim Richards]

"to.....living?"

That's kind of a stretch.

[Rodeo]

You're saying I'd be dead had we not invaded Iraq?

[Rick Lee]

I'd rather burn cash in my fireplace than have one penny of it go toward Soc. Sec. Nothing is a worse waste of money than SS. Even if it would never go bankrupt, I'm still against it in all forms. End it, you can't mend it.

[Rodeo]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
I'd rather burn cash in my fireplace than have one penny of it go toward Soc. Sec.

Then you should be extremely happy with the Iraq war.

[lendaddy]

It's always about the money with the greedy Liberals

[Jim Richards]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
I'd rather burn cash in my fireplace than have one penny of it go toward Soc. Sec. Nothing is a worse waste of money than SS. Even if it would never go bankrupt, I'm still against it in all forms. End it, you can't mend it.

I would hate to end it without returning everything I've paid into it for the past 35 years. NFW do I want to just give that money to the gov. Neither do I want to give big bucks to the B2 warmongers. I'd rather spend it on my 911E.

[Jim Richards]

Originally posted by lendaddy
greedy Liberals

ROFL!

[CRH911S]

It's always about the money with the greedy Liberals...lendaddy.

A little like the pot calling the kettle black isn't it?

[Rick Lee]

Jim, your SS payments didn't go into some account that's growing for you to tap into when you retire. A portion of it goes to support current SS recipients and the rest (the $70 billion per year SS surplus) goes to cover general spending and is "covered" by worthless IOU's. Face the fact that SS is a double tax that you will always pay and might get some small slice back. But there's nothing right about it. And Rodeo, yes, I am happy with the Iraq War. It was the right thing to do, no matter how badly it's been managed in some areas. And SS was the wrong thing to do even when it was managed well. There's no right way to do the wrong thing.

[Rodeo]

Can you imagine a guy got fired for predicting the invasion/reconstruction could cost $100 to $200 Billion? But Rumsfeld and all the others that predicted oil revenues would pay for the whole thing not only go their offices every day, but still are praised by the president for doing a "fine job."

You just can't make this up.

Of course it's not just about money. Look at May 03. That was "mission acomplished"

[lendaddy]

Sarcasm is dead

[Jim Richards]

Originally posted by Rick Lee
Jim, your SS payments didn't go into some account that's growing for you to tap into when you retire. A portion of it goes to support current SS recipients and the rest (the $70 billion per year SS surplus) goes to cover general spending and is "covered" by worthless IOU's. Face the fact that SS is a double tax that you will always pay and might get some small slice back. But there's nothing right about it.

I love it when the kids (RL) like to "school" curmudgeons like me about things like this. I will not accept it as a double tax. You can if you want. I will fight for my money back. It's my right to fight for it. If I loose, I will be one angry SOB. And I show my anger though participation in the political process.

B2's war is a premeditated criminal act. WTF should I fund it?

[Rick Lee]

Jim, surely you know not one penny of the SS surplus money spent on Iraq would go back into SS if there were no Iraq War. The SS looting has been going on for decades and will not stop. And there's not much you can do about it.

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by kach22i
You can't trust a republican with your money.
Howard Dean

Typical Democrat-speak for "you can't trust Democrats with your money."...I was watching "Cops" last night and in many ways the Democrats remind me of the criminals getting busted. They deny, lie, falsify, forge, blame, cry and run, when they are obviously guilty.

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by Rodeo
We could have fixed social security for the next 75 years. Instead ....

Just as I expected, Democrats don't want to pay the debt down at all. They want another slush fund to dip their dirty hands in. That is all social security has become, a piggy bank, and the Democrats want it filled with money.

I do not know if you remember, but GW had sane approach to solving the social security problem, but it was demonized by the Democrats. It was demonized because it took monies out of the Democrat hands. This recent "we could have fixed social security...blah blah blah", is just another propaganda product launch.

I guess this article is a way of ignoring the Bush economy and the historically low unemployment rates.