Don't let them write Bush a blank check. They are mortgaging our future by spending down the Social Security Trust fund for a war in Iraq and for tax cuts for the wealthy.
Kristof from the NY Times writes about how our wallets are getting picked:Iraq and Your Wallet
For every additional second we stay in Iraq, we taxpayers will end up paying an additional $6,300.
So aside from the rising body counts and all the other good reasons to adopt a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, here's another: We are spending vast sums there that would be better spent rescuing the American health care system, developing alternative forms of energy and making a serious effort to reduce global poverty.
In the run-up to the Iraq war, Donald Rumsfeld estimated that the overall cost would be under $50 billion. Paul Wolfowitz argued that Iraq could use its oil to "finance its own reconstruction."
But now several careful studies have attempted to tote up various costs, and they suggest that the tab will be more than $1 trillion -- perhaps more than $2 trillion. The higher sum would amount to $6,600 per American man, woman and child.
{snip}
Just to put that $2 trillion in perspective, it is four times the additional cost needed to provide health insurance for all uninsured Americans for the next decade. It is 1,600 times Mr. Bush's financing for his vaunted hydrogen energy project. ....
Meteor blades from DailyKos added his own comments on this NY Times editorial:
Kristof notes that there are other hidden costs not included in that per capita figure:
* $600,000 to $5 million over the lifetime of the 3,000 U.S. Iraq War veterans (so far) with severe head injuries
* Disability payments for the next 50 years for an unknown - but large - number of Iraq War veterans
* Re-enlistment bonuses, some as high as $150,000
* Replacing armor, aircraft, et cetera
* Interest costs of the war being paid for by borrowing from China, et al., estimated at $264 billion to $308 billion
* Higher oil costs, possibly a half-trillion-dollar drag on the economy
The bottom line is that not only have we squandered 2,800 American lives and considerable American prestige in Iraq, but we're also paying $18,000 per household to do so. ...
We're spending $380,000 for every extra minute we stay in Iraq, and we can find better ways to spend that money. SO VOTE THE BUSH ENABLERS OUT OF OFFICE.
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