Iraq Runs 79 Billion Dollar Surplus While USA Runs Record Deficit

Are we the only ones who find this rather bizarre? While the USA under Bush is running a record-setting deficit this year, the Iraqi government is set to run a 79 billion dollar surplus. Of course one reason why they are running this surplus is that we are paying for a significant amount of their reconstruction.

At the start of the run-up to the Iraq War, Colin Powell was reported to have told Bush that "Pottery Barn rules will apply. If you break it, you pay for it." So, on the one hand, if you invade a country under false premises, remove its government, and, in the process destroy a lot of its infrastructure, then maybe you should pay for its reconstruction. On the other hand, its their country, so shouldn't the Iraqis use some of their oil money to pay for part of their own country's reconstruction? Just one more example of how hard-working Americans are having their tax money hi-jacked by this Republican administration.

The Bush Record: Surplus to Record Making Deficit

So, how do you go from a 86.4 billion dollar surplus in fiscal year 2000 to a record setting deficit in fiscal year 2008? Well, first you elect George "Frat Boy" Bush as President. Next, you give him a GOP Congress that can't say no. You follow that up with reckless tax cuts for the wealthy and you add a needless war with Iraq. Viola! You go from the Federal Government being in the black under Bill Clinton to bleeding red ink under "Frat Boy". See, it really was pretty simple. All you needed was a bunch of Republicans running, or should we say, ruining, our country.

Iraq War Cost Keeps Going Up and Up

There is a new report out by the Congressional Budget Office that shows that the cost of the Iraq War rose sharply in 2007. This is from the Reuters article:
War funding, which averaged about $93 billion a year from 2003 through 2005, rose to $120 billion in 2006 and $171 billion in 2007 and President George W. Bush has asked for $193 billion in 2008, the nonpartisan office wrote.

The cost of this war is not being borne by Americans in the form of tax increases or cutbacks in government spending. Bush and his Republican allies in Congress have ruled out tax increases. It is being financed by borrowing and passing the cost on to future generations of taxpayers. When George W. Bush took office, the country was running a surplus, now it is running a deficit projected this year to reach 250 billion dollars.

Meanswhile the Federal Debt has gone from around four trillion dollars to over 9 trillion dollars. A lot of this is owned by foreign entities which are controlled by foreign governments, like the Chinese.

None of this seems to worry "Bubble-Boy" and his Republican allies since they think that they won't pay any political price for supporting these idiotic policies. Let's try to disabuse them of this notion in November.

Bush Values: Where He Puts Our Money

You can tell a family's values by where it puts its money. If, for example, a family puts their money in a big house and expensive cars while not saving for their children's college education, that tells you something about the values of the adults in that family. The same is true for politicians when it comes to spending our tax dollars. Where they choose to put our money shows what they value. With that in mind, how are conservatives doing?

If you go to the website www.costofwar.com you will see what the Iraq War is costing United States tax payers. The site has a counter with constantly changing figures. The figures displayed are a running total of the U.S. taxpayer cost of the Iraq War. The number is based on Congressional appropriations.

As of this morning, the cost of this war exceeded 419 billion dollars. Note that the figures are based just on the Iraq War and not on the operations in Afghanistan. The site also has comparisions of what we could have gotten for this money. We could have give, for example, over 20 million American children scholarships to attend four-year universities. We could have built over 3 million housing units. We could have hired over 7 million teachers for one year. We could have provided medical insurance for over 250 million children for one year.

Of course, Bush and his gang of radical conservatives would never have spent our money to help Americans. They will spend billions on a futile quest to bring democracy to Iraq, but not to help their fellow Americans. Just like with a family, where the Bushies put our tax dollars shows the values of George W. Bush. What it shows is that he doesn't value Americans.
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The cost of war website is maintained by the National Priorities Project. The Project's website has other interesting stuff.

Dems Adopt "PayGo" in the U.S. House

The Democratic controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted yesterday to change the budget rules for the U.S. House. They went back to a system that the Republicans used during Clinton's presidency, but abandoned when George W. Bush became president. The system's nickname is PayGo and works like this: any new spending increase proposed has to be backed by either tax increases or spending cuts elsewhere and any new tax cuts have to be backed by either spending cuts or tax increases elsewhere. (You can link to the CBS News story about PayGo by clicking on the arrow next to this entry's title.)

Adopting PayGo will help to restore fiscal sanity to Congress, but only a third of the Republicans voted for it. Why? Because it will make it harder to extend Bush's reckless tax cuts when they expire in 2010. Given a choice between cutting taxes and moving toward a balanced budget, most Republicans chose cutting taxes. This vote, more than any other that will be taken this session, shows that Republicans are not the party of fiscal responsibility, they are the party of reckless tax cutting. Republicans used to call Democrats "tax and spend liberals". Well, the vote on PayGo shows that they are "borrow and spend radical conservatives."