War, Peace and My Son's Tax Bill

[From the Washington Post]

Record '05 Deficit Forecast

By Jonathan Weisman, Washington Post Staff Writer

Additional war spending this year will push the federal deficit to a record $427 billion for fiscal 2005, effectively thwarting President Bush's pledge to begin stanching the flow of government red ink, according to new administration budget forecasts unveiled yesterday.

Administration officials rolled out an $80 billion emergency spending request, mainly for Iraq and Afghanistan, conceding that the extra money would probably send the federal deficit above the record $412 billion recorded in fiscal 2004, which ended Sept. 30. Bush has pledged to cut the budget deficit in half by 2009, a promise the administration says it can keep. But at least for now, the government's fiscal health is worsening.

In separate briefings, administration officials detailed the rising cost of war while the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released its deficit forecast for the coming decade.

Taken together, the briefings painted a sobering picture of the government's financial strength, even in the face of a growing economy and rising tax receipts. The figures suggest the Bush administration will continue to have difficulty reining in federal deficits as long as war is draining the government's coffers.

"There is no question that [the insurgents], with relatively small expenditures, are proving themselves to be able to force us into much larger ones," one senior administration official said.

Of the $80 billion request, at least $75 billion would fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan this year. An additional $5 billion would go toward building an embassy in Baghdad, continuing reconstruction in Afghanistan, offering assistance to the Palestinians and sending relief to the Darfur region of Sudan. That $80 billion would come on top of $25 billion already appropriated for the war this year, pushing the total cost of fighting to $105 billion, up from $88 billion in 2004 and $78.6 billion in 2003.

The latest war request would push the total cost of military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and other efforts since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to $277 billion, according to the CBO. That figure well exceeds the inflation-adjusted $200 billion cost of World War I and is approaching the $350 billion cost of the Korean War, according to Commerce Department figures.

In a separate briefing, CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin said tax cuts and spending enacted by Congress last year will contribute $504 billion to the government's overall forecast debt between 2005 and 2014. Additional debt over that decade should total $1.36 trillion, well above the $861 billion figure the CBO projected in September.

End of quote

So as a good progressive, I’ve got a very basic reason for hoping the Iraqi elections go well. The alternative is just too damn expensive.

I note this because the upcoming elections in Iraq create a complicated twist in the minds of a lot of my ideological ilk. As Bush-haters, I want everything he attempts to fail. It’s been fun to be able to say “Told you so!” over the insurgency and the near-complete absence of public Iraqi love for the occupation.

But as a progressive, I’ve been calling for more real elections in the Third World since my college days twenty years ago. So I hope the elections turn out well, and Iraq develops into a decent, functioning democracy. But then Bush and the neocons are proven right. And that bugs me.

So it’s easier to look at it just in terms of cost. If the elections work, then the new Iraqi government will conceivably start looking for a way to get U.S. troops off the property, to give themselves legitimacy in the eyes of Iraqis. They’ll have to work harder to train and develop an Iraqi security system. If it works, our troops leave and the bill goes down.

The Bush administration is in no hurry to see the bill drop. The whole Republican idea of destroying the federal safety net is built on bankrupting the federal treasury and forcing a dramatic showdown down the road where the national public will be forced to choose between raising taxes and school lunches for someone else’s kid. They’re betting that the public puts selfishness above national responsibility and it’s all brought down to a crashing end. Out of control spending on Iraq speeds up this day of reckoning. If the elections work and country becomes more stable, they declare victory. If it doesn’t, then the bill eventually bankrupts the federal government, vital services are destroyed and future Republicans declare victory. So the GOP sees it as win-win.

So what to do? Easy. Root for the Iraqi elections. Hope they turn out well and if they do, start a legitimate push to withdraw our troops. (The current progressive call to turn it all over to some unnamed international body erroneously presumes that someone else is willing to have their soldiers shot at.) Say we’re all glad it turned out well. Then point out the cost of unilateral action to the taxpayer. Remind folks of how little the Gulf War cost in comparison because we had agreement among the nations as to the cause and the cost.

We can’t talk about that now because Americans seem insistent on seeing this mess through. But there is sure to be sticker shock after the boots leave. We need to use this. We need to remind folks that the cost of unilateral action is the cost. It’s not just the love we lose, it’s the money. And even folks in Peoria can relate to that.