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Which costs more- Obamas Stimulus/Iraq War

post #1 of 51
8/24/10 at 9:28am
Thread Starter 
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/op...101302919.html

I thought this was an interesting article that puts things in perspective financially.
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post #2 of 51
8/24/10 at 9:44am
There's one small point that the article failed to call out. Only a tiny fraction of the Iraq war was in the budget, therefore the CBO would not reflect it's true cost. So comparing what is in the current budget to spending that was never accounted for in that budget is not a basis for an argument. One of the things I commend Obama for doing was to put the war into the budget, so that taxpayers had a clue where their hard earned money was going towards.
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post #3 of 51
8/24/10 at 9:58am
Which would you rather we spend our money on? War or on ourselves?
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post #4 of 51
8/24/10 at 10:04am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Momofmany View Post
There's one small point that the article failed to call out. Only a tiny fraction of the Iraq war was in the budget, therefore the CBO would not reflect it's true cost. So comparing what is in the current budget to spending that was never accounted for in that budget is not a basis for an argument. One of the things I commend Obama for doing was to put the war into the budget, so that taxpayers had a clue where their hard earned money was going towards.
Where did you read that.
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post #5 of 51
8/24/10 at 10:11am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Momofmany View Post
There's one small point that the article failed to call out. Only a tiny fraction of the Iraq war was in the budget, therefore the CBO would not reflect it's true cost. So comparing what is in the current budget to spending that was never accounted for in that budget is not a basis for an argument. One of the things I commend Obama for doing was to put the war into the budget, so that taxpayers had a clue where their hard earned money was going towards.
What she said.

Plus, nice opinion piece from a right wing rag that has Cal Thomas as one of it's columnists.

" "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"

More of the Washingtonexaminers quality journalism in that edition

"Liberal women have their panties in a bunch over the media's recent characterization of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a "feminist."

You see, that job is patented by liberal feminists who, for the past 30 or so years, have turned the term for "belief and advocacy in and for equality between the sexes" into a vote-manipulating, moneymaking shtick
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post #6 of 51
8/24/10 at 10:15am
Quote:
Originally Posted by blueyedgirl5946 View Post
Where did you read that.
Read it? We lived it. It was on the news while it was happening. Bush never included either war in the budgets.
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post #7 of 51
8/24/10 at 10:17am
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2dogmom View Post
Which would you rather we spend our money on? War or on ourselves?

When we spend money in the US something called the "Money Multiplier" kicks into effect. The money is handed from person to person., spent over and over again. That's why they call it a stimulus. But that's beyond the tea party understanding of economics.
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post #8 of 51
8/24/10 at 10:26am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave_PH View Post
Read it? We lived it. It was on the news while it was happening. Bush never included either war in the budgets.
Yup. The CBO estimates have the war at over a trillion dollars, but admits that they don't have enough information on what was actually spent to come up with an accurate figure.

http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/w...raqwarcost.htm

If you google Iraq war budget, you'll find a ton of information.
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post #9 of 51
8/24/10 at 10:33am
Was it a bad thing when George Bush started this 'stimulus' approach with his $300 checks to each person?

But under Obama its' Socialism.

Wasn't his response to 9/11 to tell people to 'go shopping'. The same advice he gave again in 2006 with the start of that recession?
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post #10 of 51
8/24/10 at 10:37am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave_PH View Post
What she said.

Plus, nice opinion piece from a right wing rag that has Cal Thomas as one of it's columnists.

" "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"

More of the Washingtonexaminers quality journalism in that edition

"Liberal women have their panties in a bunch over the media's recent characterization of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as a "feminist."

You see, that job is patented by liberal feminists who, for the past 30 or so years, have turned the term for "belief and advocacy in and for equality between the sexes" into a vote-manipulating, moneymaking shtick

Yes, the war in Iraq cost was astronomic. It has nothing to do with what Obama has done since he has been in office. He is spending money like there is no tomorrow and he is not slowing down. It is amazing to me how Bush is responsible for everything Obama does.
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post #11 of 51
8/24/10 at 10:42am
Quote:
Originally Posted by blueyedgirl5946 View Post
He is spending money like there is no tomorrow and he is not slowing down. It is amazing to me how Bush is responsible for everything Obama does.
Remember who was President when the Financial system collapsed? That isn't something the economy get's over in a few months. Maybe decades. Who called for and signed the TRAP funding?

How many jobs was the economy losing each month at the end of Bush's reign and the first quarter of Obama's first year? Obama's kept us out of The Great depression II despite Republican obstructionism.
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post #12 of 51
8/24/10 at 11:02am
These two issues are so apples/oranges, it's hard to square them against one another.

Whether you agree with its implementation or not, you at least have to respect the stimulus/bailout as a measure meant to do some good. Maybe you're not one of those that have felt any immediate positive impact, but someone did. And maybe a great deal of those "someones" were corrupt wielders of power that make America's economy go 'round. But that system preceded Obama. And Bush. And a great many men before them. It is what it is. Something had to be done to throw a band-aid on a broken system.

The Iraq War was conceived out of arrogance, ignorance, and deception. Nothing fruitful - insofar as it would benefit the American people - was to be gained from it. It neither removed an imminent threat nor provided imminent relief of any sort. It was personal and smacked of legacy-building, and barring any revisionist historians getting their hands on it, will be a deserved black eye on this country forevermore.

And for what it's worth, I'm not blaming Bush.
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post #13 of 51
8/24/10 at 11:27am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave_PH View Post
Remember who was President when the Financial system collapsed? That isn't something the economy get's over in a few months. Maybe decades. Who called for and signed the TRAP funding?

How many jobs was the economy losing each month at the end of Bush's reign and the first quarter of Obama's first year? Obama's kept us out of The Great depression II despite Republican obstructionism.
When did our financial system collapse? I am really in the dark here. And what in the world is TRAP funding.

As for saying Obama has kept us from the Great Depression number two, with two more years of him in the driver's seat, I think that remains to be seen. If somebody doesn't tighten the purse strings where we are headed is not good. Remember here now that Mr. Bush is no longer spending U. S. government dollars.
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post #14 of 51
8/24/10 at 11:51am
Oh Bunny. You don't know what TARP is. Or what happened in September 2008?
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post #15 of 51
8/24/10 at 12:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by blueyedgirl5946 View Post
Yes, the war in Iraq cost was astronomic. It has nothing to do with what Obama has done since he has been in office. He is spending money like there is no tomorrow and he is not slowing down. It is amazing to me how Bush is responsible for everything Obama does.
Wait a minute...you're the one who asked the question in the first place. If the cost of the Iraq war has nothing to do with what President Obama is doing, why start a thread?

Clinton was blamed for everything Bush did...quid pro quo...no? Many of us were "amazed" for the eight years of the Bush administration.
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post #16 of 51
8/24/10 at 12:20pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave_PH View Post
Oh Bunny. You don't know what TARP is. Or what happened in September 2008?
Oh dear, go back and read your post #11. You wrote TRAP funding.
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post #17 of 51
8/24/10 at 12:27pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by clixpix View Post
Wait a minute...you're the one who asked the question in the first place. If the cost of the Iraq war has nothing to do with what President Obama is doing, why start a thread?

Clinton was blamed for everything Bush did...quid pro quo...no? Many of us were "amazed" for the eight years of the Bush administration.
Certainly the war in progress did have something to do with what Obama was doing. What I was referring to is how much money our president has spent in only two years of office, which they say has us headed on a course for calamity is it doesn't slow down or stop. Yet he still points a finger at the previous president.

I have to chuckle at the rest of what you wrote, about how presidents blame the previous one. I guess there is a lot of truth to that statement.
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post #18 of 51
8/24/10 at 12:52pm
Keynsian econimcs that pulled us out of The Great Depression show how deficits can be used to stimulate the economy.

Of course, there was no deficit hysteria during Bush's reign even though he ran deficit budgets despite not counting his war costs.

http://www.ontheissues.org/2004/Dick..._+_Economy.htm


"O'Neill said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits-expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone-posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off. "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter," he said, according to excerpts. Cheney continued: "We won the midterms (congressional elections). This is our due." "
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post #19 of 51
8/24/10 at 1:09pm
World War II was a major reason why we were able to finally pull the rest of the way out of the Great Depression. The switching of our industrial capacity for the predominate manufacture of war material for ourselves and our allies had a significant impact on reducing unemployment.
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post #20 of 51
8/24/10 at 1:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by blueyedgirl5946 View Post
Yes, the war in Iraq cost was astronomic. It has nothing to do with what Obama has done since he has been in office. He is spending money like there is no tomorrow and he is not slowing down. It is amazing to me how Bush is responsible for everything Obama does.
There is a flip side to that coin - why should Obama be responsible for everything Bush started or did?
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post #21 of 51
8/24/10 at 1:25pm
I think this ius interesting announcement from the CBO that puts things in perspective financially.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67N55X20100824

(Reuters) - The massive stimulus package boosted real GDP by up to 4.5 percent in the second quarter of 2010 and put up to 3.3 million people to work, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.
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post #22 of 51
8/24/10 at 2:13pm
Why blame Bush? Because he's responsible!!

Biden summed it up nicely today

Let's review a little bit of history here. For eight years before we arrived in the West Wing, Mr. Boehner and his party ran the economy, and the middle class literally into the ground. They took a $237 billion operating surplus, inherited from the Clinton administration, and left us with a $1.3 trillion deficit -- and in the process quadrupled the national debt, all before we literally turned on the lights in the West Wing, before we did one single solitary thing. They gave free rein to the special interests to write their own rules at the expense of everybody else, not just the middle class. And the sum total was the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression
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post #23 of 51
8/25/10 at 11:59am
Quote:
Originally Posted by Momofmany View Post
There's one small point that the article failed to call out. Only a tiny fraction of the Iraq war was in the budget, therefore the CBO would not reflect it's true cost. So comparing what is in the current budget to spending that was never accounted for in that budget is not a basis for an argument. One of the things I commend Obama for doing was to put the war into the budget, so that taxpayers had a clue where their hard earned money was going towards.
This is true, and I agree.

On the other hand, to the extent the stimulus bill OR the war spending goes to Americans, it's fairly equal in stimulating the economy AND in increasing the national debt.
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post #24 of 51
8/25/10 at 12:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave_PH View Post
Let's review a little bit of history here. For eight years before we arrived in the West Wing, Mr. Boehner and his party ran the economy, and the middle class literally into the ground. They took a $237 billion operating surplus, inherited from the Clinton administration, and left us with a $1.3 trillion deficit -- and in the process quadrupled the national debt, all before we literally turned on the lights in the West Wing, before we did one single solitary thing. They gave free rein to the special interests to write their own rules at the expense of everybody else, not just the middle class. And the sum total was the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression
The Vice President is right...sort of. Since 2006, the spending has been done by the Democratically-controlled House and Senate, and it didn't go down after they took over. In addition, there was never really a surplus; again, since Social Security and Medicare were being treated off-budget in expense but on-budget in revenue, the real deficit was much larger than indicated. And almost all of that $1.3 trillion deficit was incurred in the last months of the Bush administration and were voted in favor of by Mr. Obama.
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post #25 of 51
8/25/10 at 12:15pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave_PH View Post
I think this ius interesting announcement from the CBO that puts things in perspective financially.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE67N55X20100824

(Reuters) - The massive stimulus package boosted real GDP by up to 4.5 percent in the second quarter of 2010 and put up to 3.3 million people to work, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said on Tuesday.
Is this the same non-partisan CBO that changed its forecasts on the stimulus package after the head went to visit the President in the White House, and who originally said the stimulus package would actually be WORSE than doing nothing? If you check archived articles, there was a good deal of angst over their original forecasts, among which are such terrible news as unemployment getting as bad as 9% before the economy turned around.

Of course, a good deal less than 1/2 the total bill has been spent so far, right? Something like that?
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post #26 of 51
8/25/10 at 12:49pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrblanche View Post
Is this the same non-partisan CBO that changed its forecasts on the stimulus package after the head went to visit the President in the White House, and who originally said the stimulus package would actually be WORSE than doing nothing? If you check archived articles, there was a good deal of angst over their original forecasts, among which are such terrible news as unemployment getting as bad as 9% before the economy turned around.

Of course, a good deal less than 1/2 the total bill has been spent so far, right? Something like that?
It's the same CBO the OP was based on

"and who originally said the stimulus package would actually be WORSE than doing nothing?"

Oh no. I absolutely never heard that from the CBO. That would have to have been rush Limbaugh, Glen Beck or Hannity. Everyone else understands the use of a stimulus in a recession.
Unless they had something to say about how the Republican's mis-directed the funds to less usefull destinations. I'll need the FULL quote from the CBO
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post #27 of 51
8/25/10 at 12:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave_PH View Post
Remember who was President when the Financial system collapsed? That isn't something the economy get's over in a few months. Maybe decades. Who called for and signed the TRAP funding?

How many jobs was the economy losing each month at the end of Bush's reign and the first quarter of Obama's first year? Obama's kept us out of The Great depression II despite Republican obstructionism.
Good Freudian slip!! It sure is a TRAP! And it has done absolutely NOTHING to stop the housing market slide and lower home values for those of us who continue to make our monthly mortgage payments, while watching our house decline in value by 50%.

Quit whining about Bush, and accept the fact that your guy Obama has done absolutely NOTHING to improve the economic picture in the 19 months he has been in power. If he was even half the savior he claimed he was during the campaign, we would already be out of this quagmire! Dems have controlled Congress for 4 years, and nothing they have passed and endorsed has improved the economic picture.
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post #28 of 51
8/25/10 at 1:22pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dusty's Mom View Post
Good Freudian slip!! It sure is a TRAP! And it has done absolutely NOTHING to stop the housing market slide and lower home values for those of us who continue to make our monthly mortgage payments, while watching our house decline in value by 50%.

Quit whining about Bush, and accept the fact that your guy Obama has done absolutely NOTHING to improve the economic picture in the 19 months he has been in power. If he was even half the savior he claimed he was during the campaign, we would already be out of this quagmire! Dems have controlled Congress for 4 years, and nothing they have passed and endorsed has improved the economic picture.
I love it when somebody tells it just like it is.
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post #29 of 51
8/25/10 at 1:25pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by mrblanche View Post
The Vice President is right...sort of. Since 2006, the spending has been done by the Democratically-controlled House and Senate, and it didn't go down after they took over. In addition, there was never really a surplus; again, since Social Security and Medicare were being treated off-budget in expense but on-budget in revenue, the real deficit was much larger than indicated. And almost all of that $1.3 trillion deficit was incurred in the last months of the Bush administration and were voted in favor of by Mr. Obama.
Thanks mrblanche. I was going to say the same thing. Mr Obama voted for it.
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post #30 of 51
8/25/10 at 1:34pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dusty's Mom View Post
Quit whining about Bush, and accept the fact that your guy Obama has done absolutely NOTHING to improve the economic picture in the 19 months he has been in power. If he was even half the savior he claimed he was during the campaign, we would already be out of this quagmire! Dems have controlled Congress for 4 years, and nothing they have passed and endorsed has improved the economic picture.

That's your opinion but the professional non-partisan CBO disagrees. I'll go with the facts

Nope, sorry. This is going to continue for a long, long time. The damage Bush did with deregulation of the financial industry was horrific.
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