Yellowcake has committed our country to a war which many feel is unjust. The consequences to the rest of the worl had he not done so I think have not been hotly debated, but I could be wrong, and I don’t much care (to debate it that is, I probably DO care to some unsounded extent).
So, if we were to stop the war right now, the bill would be, what…are we at $20 billion yet? And Reelection is still a pretty good possibility for the incumbent. This says to me that, while many grumble about the war and its expense, it really isn’t that big a deal to us as a country.
So, I was wondering: What if this money was divided up and distributed to the public school system? Unadministered–just an Easter Egg in the coffer of each school. Would that affect your vote?
I don’t have a cite, but the running tab for the occupation of post-war Iraq has been running at roughly $1 billion a week for just the US. The British have been kicking in roughly the same amount, so if you figure that the build up, war, and aftermath have all been running at about the same cost factor, the tab is probably around $100 billion for just the US. Factor in what the British have spent, and it’s $200 billion. We could have gone back to the Moon for less than that, and even if the space program lost as many lives during the years spent going back to the Moon as it has since the progam began, the total number of lives lost would have been less than thirty. Plus we’d have all kinds of nifty technologies which were spin-offs from the program.
Let’s say that you are in debt to the tune of $100,000. A loan shark offers you $50,000 at an insanely high rate, with your house as collateral, and you spend it on a brand new boat. Would it be better if you had taken the “loan” and spent it on remodeling and reroofing your house?
Of course not.
I guess my question was, if & when I install myself as the beneficient dictator of the US, and I am faced with a good-sized budget surplus which I inherited from my predecessor (yes, I’m talking about the year 2064), and I get to choose between starting a war for general porpoises or just “giving the money away,” will the public think I’m totally nuts if I give it away as opposed to putting it to good use by annihilating a completely militarily inferior sovereign country.
Tongue is a bit in cheek yes, but all the same: would I be considered a wastrel for incurring a huge debt for investing in my own infrastucture (roof & remodel) as opposed to incurring a huge debt for funding a difficult-to-support war (buying a boat: fun fun fun!)? Either way, the debt will be there.
I’m asking because I believe I’d get lynched for roofing & remodeling, butprobably re-elected for starting the war.
I’m still not sure who I’m going to vote for, but I remember how I felt when Congress voted to give President Bush $87 billion to finance the occupation of Iraq in the early days of the invasion. I kept thinking how that much money would make a difference to the disadvantaged areas of the U.S. What if the National Guard of each state captured criminals and fixed up substandard housing of the citizens in problem areas of the states. Can you imagine what $87 billion would do to address the infrastructure of this country? I’m not sure I can stand thinking that we just threw hundreds of billions of dollars down a rat hole.
