1/30/2008

A billion here, a billion there

A couple of days ago I wrote that the $700 billion allocated to date for the war in Iraq amounts to $400 million per day since the war began.

Pretty hard for me to grasp all those zeroes - $700 billion is a lot of money compared to, say, the $24.4 billion allocated to “No Child Left Behind” for the whole of FY2007.

I was STUNNED to hear yesterday morning that George W. Bush on Monday signed into law yet another $700 billion expenditure – a 3.5 percent pay raise for members of the U.S. military.

The bill, which cleared the U.S. Senate by a vote of 91-3 after the House passed it 369-46, makes the pay raise retroactive to January 1.

Talk about your economic stimulus package.

Lord knows, I’m all for U.S. troops with boots on the ground getting a pay raise, but with Bush threatening to rein in spending in his SOTU address Monday night and the U.S. economy in the tank, how can this nation continue such military spending?

Now, the White House is poised to ask Congress next week for another $70 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The very conservatives who are always yammering about Democratic proposals to help lower- and middle-class Americans and are demanding permanent tax cuts are the ones who continue to believe the war in Iraq was a great idea.

Something’s got to give. Hopefully, it will - come November.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

You ask how it can go on this way, well it can't--not like we know life. I believe it's Newsweek who has a cover this coming week which questions if we will not, in fact, be bringing down the world with what Bush can get away with not just from the past but from the near future.

Where do you imagine those people in the legislature--who won their last elections based on confronting this issue, then turned right around and backed every every every single one--are? See, I think your normal person out here should be really hot on that issue. They lied, and they are a branch of the government. I wish it were funny because it's comical