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All for good cause. The Iraq war accounted for about 3 percent of federal spending while it lasted. Hardly a major cause of the national debt. We can debate whether it was justified or not, but it didn't affect the national debt much.
The entire debt for WWII were repaid in five years.
We haven't even begun to see the post war costs of bush's wars. Equipment recovery and refurbishing, re-arming, rebuilding, VA medical bills, etc. I've seen post war estimate in the trillions in the next decade.
All for good cause. The Iraq war accounted for about 3 percent of federal spending while it lasted. Hardly a major cause of the national debt. We can debate whether it was justified or not, but it didn't affect the national debt much.
Only 3% increase in national debt while it lasted, wars end but the cost continues. We will pay for the medical care of those veterans for decades and we still are paying contractors and troops to this day. We didn't budget for those wars we borrowed, we have been paying interest for the past 10 years. The cost is over $1Trillion and growing every day.
The civil war, revolutionary wars ended, we didn't have the system we have today. All the more reason to pick your fights very carefully.
I think they would like to have that $1T back for the present budget talks, that's real money.
Here is a good chart that visually shows what cause the explosion of debt over the last 12 years. We should remember that the CBO projected that the debt would be nearly paid off by now.
Actually, according to my link above, "In January 2001, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected under a current law baseline that the federal government would erase its debt in 2006. By 2011, the U.S. government would be $2.3 trillion in the black."
Makes you wonder how everything would have been different had those 700 voters in Palm Beach county, who in 2000 mistakenly voted for Pat Buchannon, actually voted for Gore.
That has never been done in the history of the modern world. You pay for war by raising taxes. So not only did we not pay for one war, not only did we not pay for a second war, we went actually went into debt to not pay for two wars.
The Bush tax cuts actually increased revenue.
When this truth was made clear to obama during a debate in2008, by Charlie Gibson (far from a right winger), obama's response was "yes, but it's not fair".
The goal is revenue and ways to increase revenue, it's not about "fairness" or making people feel good about taxing people at higher rates.
When obama is ready to have an honest dialogue about raising revenue, I'll start to respect him.
Until then, he will continue to garner support by dum dums in the recipient class and middle class people who are envious of those who are successful.
WASHINGTON (Wall Street Journal MarketWatch) — The nine-year-old Iraq war came to an official end on Thursday, but paying for it will continue for decades until U.S. taxpayers have shelled out an estimated $4 trillion.
Over a 50-year period, that comes to $80 billion annually.
Although that only represents about 1% of nation’s gross domestic product, it’s more than half of the national budget deficit. It’s also roughly equal to what the U.S. spends on the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and the Environmental Protection Agency combined each year.
This is something that has always bugged me. There are two obvious causes of our debt. By far and away, the number one cause is over spending. A secondary, lesser cause was the crash of 2008, which caused about a 10 percent drop in revenue. But that wouldn't have been a crisis except for the spending.
The Iraq war had almost nothing to do with the debt. The Afghan war had less, and in any case was strongly supported by most Democrats, including Pres. Obama. The Bush tax cuts had zero, zip, nada to do with it. When are we going to get some honesty about the national debt?
Correct-
Libs do not seem to understand that if federal spending levels were at "Clinton" era spending levels (adjusted for inflation), we would have a $200 billion per year annual surplus.
We have a spending problem. If libs want the US to go back to "Clinton era" tax levels, why not go back to "clinton era" spending levels?
Location: On the "Left Coast", somewhere in "the Land of Fruits & Nuts"
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Hey, I'd love to go back to my old ''spending levels'' too (adjusted for inflation natch'). Which is kinda hard to do after I've acquired an ex-wife, a mortgage and a couple kids worth of debt... let alone 2 wars and a generous loss of revenue (aka, tax cuts for the wealthy)!
Libs do not seem to understand that if federal spending levels were at "Clinton" era spending levels (adjusted for inflation), we would have a $200 billion per year annual surplus.
We have a spending problem. If libs want the US to go back to "Clinton era" tax levels, why not go back to "clinton era" spending levels?
It sounds like a very rational, fair thing to do.
This is where most of that increase was (this is adjusted for inflation):
Libs do not seem to understand that if federal spending levels were at "Clinton" era spending levels (adjusted for inflation), we would have a $200 billion per year annual surplus.
We have a spending problem. If libs want the US to go back to "Clinton era" tax levels, why not go back to "clinton era" spending levels?
It sounds like a very rational, fair thing to do.
I am cool with that, lets return to taxing and spending levels of the Clinton Era Would you be willing to see taxes go up for that to happen? I am fine with spending going down to where Clinton had it set (which also means you are gonna see some money come out of defense, I am sure you are cool with that)
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