Well, that’s a pretty important issue if he is talking about being more decisive towards ISIS than Obama. It really smacks of tough talk that gives him an out when it doesn’t work the way he promised.
They already are. Most of the folks fighting ISIS on the ground are Kurd, Syrian’s of various affiliations, Iraqi’s, some Turks, etc etc. Almost none of them are American’s, Brits, French, etc. So, sounds like what he’s proposing is basically to send in some additional support troops, probably special forces to coordinate strikes, maybe some other recon and light rapid forces, and probably more drone and air strikes if we can get extended basing in the region.
But surly you weren’t talking about just Bush in your OP?
It does. Just like it smacks of “tough talk with an out” when Obama says he’s going to defeat Da-esh, but the actual time when they are allegedly going to be defeated will be on someone else’s watch.
DAmn, that’s bad news for the Obama campaign.
How’s that workin’ out for us?
I didn’t realize we were confining our discussion to campaigns. But yeah, there are political implications to policy statements and then there are reality implications.
Surely on option would be to get Iraq and Syria to pay for it. “Fine we’ll kick out Isis and get you your old borders back. You pay us back over 20 years from oil revenues”
Anyway, it’s clear that Jeb Bush does not fit the claim in the OP. So, where are these “many” Republican presidential candidates who are doing wha the OP claims they are doing?
We are still waiting for checks from Iraq to pay us for our war liberating them from Sadam Hussein. I’m just assuming it was lost in the mail due to the incompetence of the Obama administration.
Dick Cheney said deficits don’t matter. So just put the campaign on the Visa card and pay for it by cutting social programs later.
All of the Republicans want a significantly greater effort to destroy ISIS than is currently being waged. If you want to continue to lawyer the exact wording of the OP, I will yield the point if it makes you feel better.
But the gist of my question remains: Any new military effort advanced by the Republican candidates against ISIS is going to cost a lot more than we are spending now. Do they propose to pay for it with taxes or borrowing?
I doubt we could, and don’t call me Surely. 
[QUOTE=Fear Itself]
How’s that workin’ out for us?
[/QUOTE]
For us (a.k.a. the US and western European allies)? I’d say about as well as we could expect. It’s not cost us that much in terms of (our) lives, has been able to halt and even roll ISIS back in some cases, certainly has hurt them quite a bit. I’m unsure what you are getting at. You don’t think that it would be better if we sent in US and other western European allied ground troops, do you? I mean, it MIGHT be better for the Iraqis and Syrians if we were able to knock ISIS out of at least the ground conquest game and put them back to a traditional terrorist insurgency model of operation, but even that is a bit tenuous as to ‘better’…and it would certainly cost us more in terms of US/European lives lost, problem more in terms of Iraqi and Syrian lives lost as well (no matter how good your ground troops are, in this kind of fight there are going to be a lot more causalities) and would cost a ton more money (especially since the bulk of the ground troops, as always in this sort of scenario, will come from the US).
I am citing the Republican candidates. They all feel the current effort is inadequate and Obama is risking the security of the Homeland. If they want to increase the military effort against ISIS, how is it going to be paid for, taxes or borrowing? That is what I am getting at.
No, at least one of them wants to do less.
But none that I know of has offered a payment plan. So what? Obama is doing a LOT more than we were doing 3 years ago, and Hillary no doubt will keep it up. How did he/she tell us they were going to pay for the escalation? The answer is simple: Small stuff like this is chump change in the overall budget. Once you concede that we’re not talking about some massive invasion, then the issue of how to pay for it isn’t really an issue any more.
Well yeah…of course they are. They are running against Hillary (and each other), but really they are running against Obama’s current record and trying to portray Hillary as a continuation of that. Hillary, on the other hand, is trying to both take the good parts of the record and differentiate herself from Obama as well…and has also had some tough talk on what to do about ISIS/ISIL. Right now, it’s a hot topic and all sides are using it in an attempt to bolster their candidacy wrt their base and the broader voters as well, so it’s unsurprising.
Like I said earlier, wrt the second part of your post here, they will borrow or, basically, run a deficit which is sort of the same thing. They won’t be increasing taxes (I doubt Hillary will either, assuming she pushes for a more vigorous campaign that includes ground troops), at least that they SAY they will before they are elected. I doubt they will even give any specifics on how they will increase the pace or whatever it is they are vaguely advocating…they simply aren’t going to go into details on how they will pay for it or, specifically, what they would do different. Just as Obama didn’t when he was running against Bush’s record and talking about Afghanistan and Iraq. As it was, he was a bit too specific, since it set up disappointment in his base when he didn’t seem to follow through on all the things they thought he was promising. Hillary and the Republicans aren’t going to make THAT mistake. 
By borrowing and raising taxes, which is not inconsistent with the principles of the Democrats.
Yet every time Democrats try to pass a much small domestic spending program, suddenly chump change becomes a threat to the economy if it isn’t paid for.
The current administration paid for our involvement in Libya simply by shifting money around. There is some amount of flexibility there.
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states could certainly be asked to share some of the cost as well.
Bah! Another liberal who doesn’t understand conservative philosophy.
Would you please keep up with the program? :eek:
First of all, the deficit worry is about millions paid to Welfare Mama, not trillions for Freedom™. Second, anything the Army can do for $10 million, fine American Job Creators™ like Halliburton can do for $50 million. A new war is just what is needed to put money into the right hands. And Halliburton proves its patriotism and conservative American values by hiding its profits in the Cayman Islands instead of letting the IRS steal its money and give it to Welfare Mama.
I’m sure that a Republican President can find more ways to save money. George W. Bush laid off many thousands of IRS auditors but there are still thousands left. Lay off another thousand auditors and save almost $200 million annually when overheads are included. They’re hardly worthwhile; it takes 3 or 4 of these pesky auditors just to recover a measly $20 million from cheating taxpayers.
Millions more can be saved by cutting down on the luxurious food provided under the socialist programs of food for schoolchildren. The children will be proud to know they’re helping finance Halliburton’s efforts against ISIS.
There’s different things to look at here.
If a Republican President would just do, as OP asserts “more than Obama” (as I believe that’s what he’s claiming they are promising) that could mean anything–including things that only marginally increase DoD spending. If you say, deploy 500 more special forces operatives in the region than are already there that is basically non-material cost in comparison to the DoD budget, and it’s technically “doing more to defeat ISIS.” We already pay these guy’s salaries regardless of whether we deploy them, and while they do get more money when deployed into a combat zone 500 guys it’s not much, it’s less than a rounding era in comparison to the Federal budget.
We were spending something like $500m to try and train anti-ISIS Syrians before giving that up, we could literally restart a similar program to train anti-ISIS insurgents and allocated $1bn a year, and ask the Saudis to match us dollar for dollar (they likely would.) That’s $2bn/yr for anti-ISIS training and would involve again, an amount “effectively zero” in comparison to our Federal budget.
I think you’re imagining something much more dramatic, like a Operation Iraqi Freedom level troop buildup and deployment. Okay, so if we do that we’ll spend around $11bn/mo (while it’s still up for debate, I’m going with War in Iraq cost of $1T over a timespan of 90 months from 2003 to 2010 for the averaged cost), but let’s say it’s limited to just “invading and destroying ISIS” then leaving. Let’s call it 6 months, so round it up to $70bn in cost.
The simple answer is we’ll pay for it the same way a Republican President paid for the War in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Republican party has always wanted reductions in domestic policy spending and has almost never advocated major cuts to defense spending at any point since the 40s/50s. Put simply the GOP doesn’t mind spending for military affairs, and philosophically (as evidenced by past behavior of Republican Presidents and Congresses) the GOP doesn’t mind deficit spending if it’s necessary to pay for wars. You might say that’s at odd with the rhetoric candidates for high office spout, but I’m talking actual Republican behavior, which in the grand scheme of things is more relevant than rhetoric. Most politicians espouse ideas that are not reflected in their actions once in office, from both parties. I’m not sure if you’re trying to “expose” the reality that the GOP candidates are promising things they won’t deliver on, but voters have faced that reality from all Presidential candidates since the first actively contested Presidential campaigns, and it doesn’t appear to have made a big impact on voter behavior.
I do think the modern day GOP Congress, with a Republican President, would try to reduce domestic spending to at least offset some of the costs of this theoretical $11bn/mo war. But the truth on domestic spending is many aspects of it are sacred cows to Republicans, too, and while they might indeed cut a few billion out of disfavored programs the cuts will in the grand scheme of things be minor because too many GOP Congressmen and Senators (just like their counterparts across the aisle) will be unwilling to ignore what butters their bread and piss off their constituents.
The real answer to the OP’s question is: In more American blood being spilled than is worth it.
As much as I care about controlling expenses, I care more about not getting Americans killed in needless adventures overseas. If the regional countries that are actually affected by Da-esh the most are unwilling to send in troops, we certainly shouldn’t do so. All this talk of a “coalition” is nonsense-- nothing is going to happen over there with us leading. And any Republican who thinks we can fix things by sending in ground troops, however few, scares the bejesus out of me. I’m not even sure we can trust Hillary not to get us back into that quagmire. It’s enough to make a person want to vote for Bernie!