Washington Examiner
By: Mark Tapscott0 - 8/23/2010
Expect to hear a lot about how much the Iraq war cost in the days ahead from Democrats worried about voter wrath against their unprecedented spending excesses.
The meme is simple: The economy is in a shambles because of Bush's economic policies and his war in Iraq. As American Thinker's Randall Hoven points out, that's the message being peddled by lefties as diverse as former Clinton political strategist James Carville, economist Joseph Stiglitz, and The Nation's Washington editor, Christopher Hayes.
The key point in the mantra is an alleged $3 trillion cost for the war. Well, it was expensive to be sure, in both blood and treasure, but, as Hoven notes, the CBO puts the total cost at $709 billion.
To put that figure in the proper context of overall spending since the war began in 2003, Hoven provides this handy CBO chart showing the portion of the annual deficit attributable to the conflict.
But there is much more to be said of this data and Hoven does an admirable job of summarizing the highlights of such an analysis:* Obama's stimulus, passed in his first month in office, will cost more than the entire Iraq War -- more than $100 billion (15%) more.
* Just the first two years of Obama's stimulus cost more than the entire cost of the Iraq War under President Bush, or six years of that war.
* The Iraq War accounts for less than 8% of the federal debt held by the public at the end of 2010 ($9.031 trillion). . . Entire column
Blog author's comments - From now until the November elections the Obama administration along with most liberals and the 'Drive-By' media, will be pushing the same spin - the reason the economy is so bad is the fault of the Bush administration and the Iraq war. You will also hear them say... the Democrats have the country on a path towards an economic recovery.
This is what these people do best. They have no answers or ideas to begin to help our economy so they play the 'blame game', backed by the MSM. I will admit that the Iraq war cost this country quite a lot both in troop loss and money and is the reason we now have Barack Obama as the president.
Bush and company should have done a better job at running the war. This was the ammunition for the MSM to batter the Republican party and they were successful in helping to sway many voters to vote for the Democrats. The voting Democrats and liberals along with some so-called Republicans would have voted for anyone who received the nomination of the Democrat party.
But...now it is time for the Republican party to bounce back. The conservative members of our society must use the ballot box to speak out concerning this very serious and outrageous plan Obama has to change and remake our country. We cannot let this continue.
We either do it in November or it is over. If the Republican party cannot regain enough power with the mid-term elections, I do not want to even think about the consequences this country will face.
