The true cost of BushCo’s Wars..

It is with great regret I announce to you what might possibly be the true cost of George W. Bush’s two wars my dear reader. It probably won’t surprise you, but it will jack your jaw just a tad I think. According to the Democrats and The Washington Post..the total cost for both wars, at this point, is somewhere around..

$1.5 Trillion

So, did it freak you out? How this figure was arrived at might be a question you are pondering..I know I did. Well, according to the report, this ungodly number was arrived at by adding in higher oil prices,the costs of treating the wounded and disabled, lost productivity from those injured, potential future expansions in the size of the military made necessary by the war, the costs of repair and refit for military equipment, increases in recruitment and retention costs for the military, and economic disruptions created by the deployment of the Reserves and last but certainly not least.. interest payments on the money borrowed to pay for the wars.

I have always been angry about the fact that we must borrow money to pay for Bush’s wars, I have never been quiet about that. To me its a huge travesty, if not an outright crime to finance these gigantic boondoggles in this way. To actually quote from the Executive Summary of the report:

In this report, the Joint Economic Committee estimates the total costs of the long war in Iraq to the American economy as a whole:

The total economic costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan so far have been approximately double the total amounts directly requested by the Administration to fight these wars.

The future economic costs of a prolonged military presence in Iraq would be massive. Even assuming a considerable drawdown in troop levels, total economic costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (with the vast majority of costs a result of in the war Iraq) would amount to $3.5 trillion between 2003 and 2017. This is over $1 trillion higher than the recent Congressional Budget Office (CBO) Federal cost forecast for the same scenario, which counted only direct spending and interest paid on war-related debt resulting from that spending.

The total economic cost of the war in Iraq to a family of four is a shocking $16,500 from 2002 to 2008. When the war in Afghanistan is included, the burden to the American family rises to $20,900. The future impact on a family of four skyrockets to $36,900 for Iraq and $46,400 for Iraq and Afghanistan when all potential costs from 2002 to 2017 are included.

I hope you read the last point above, its very important to every American. A family of four might possibly end up paying $46,400 tax dollars to fund these debacles. Since there is only myself and the ball and chain my household..does that mean we will end up paying double that? Math was never my strong suit. But any way you slice and dice it..its a shitload of tax dollars.

The next part to catch my eye was where it tells us what has been requested to fund the war by the Decider-in-Chief:

To date, the President has requested a total of $607 billion for the Iraq war alone since 2003. This is over ten times higher than the $50 to $60 billion cost estimated by the Administration prior to the start of the war. Costs have increased every year since the start of the war in 2003. The Administration has requested $804 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars combined (CRS 2007,Bumiller 2003)

Didn’t the Jackass-in-Chief get an MBA from Harvard? Doesn’t he hire folks with MBA’s to figure out what this friggin clusterfuck would cost? Oh wait..we don’t ‘budget‘ for the wars, we just fund them with a blank check from Congress. Scratch that rhetorical question.

I also wondered aloud what we could of paid for that we really need in this country. A intelligent question I thought to myself. Well, lo and behold..the Democrats tell us in the report:

To provide some perspective on these figures, just the funds requested for the Iraq war through 2008 would have been sufficient to provide health insurance coverage to all of America’s uninsured for the 2003-2008 period. (There were approximately 45 million uninsured Americans at the start of the war in 2003 and this number rose to 47 million by 2006, which is the latest figure available from the U.S. Census Bureau).

That sure didn’t warm the cockles of my little black heart, let me tell you. In fact, since I am one of the 47 million without health insurance, it pissed me off so bad..I had to pour myself a glass of wine, after all, its Happy Hour somewhere in the world right? Problem is, I am far from happy at this point in the report. So lets get back to the “Interest costs” of these wars. From the report again:

Interest costs on Iraq-related debt will be over $23 billion in FY 2008, and are projected to far exceed spending on programs that address key national priorities such as education and health. Chart 3 shows the current and projected future time path of interest spending through 2012. Thechart shows that the annual interest costs on accumulated war debt already far exceed spending for such national priorities as health insurance for children (under the proposed Democratic SCHIP expansion recently vetoed by the President) and health research.

Ok, thats it..I can’t go any further into the report. I can feel my blood pressure rise, I am gritting my teeth and I just screamed at one of my cats to get the fuck away from me. If you want to know what other nuggets of information are contained within this report..you will have to click the link and read it yourself..I just can not do it my dear reader. But let me know if you find anything that rivals what I already read ok?

And if by chance, you make it entirely through the report..here is another one just released today that tells us if ‘we stay the course’ the total price tag would be over $3.5 Trillion bucks…

Now, where did I put that bottle of wine?

Last illustration is from the Art of Mark Bryan.com

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