Old article on cost of wars while current Republicans celebrate tax cuts

[pauldun170]

Prior to Newt Gingrich wrecking the joint, I used to be a republican. Back before they made being a self centered evangelical deuchebag with a foxnews sweatshirt a requirement to join the party.

As the republican party buys your vote with tax cuts, I thought I'd drop a reminder that no one is reimbursing us for playing shoot em up in the middle east.

If a war costs trillions of dollars, and no one pays for it, what is its true cost? Since the 9/11 attacks, America has poured $3.2 trillion into its wars, according to a new study from Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs. The estimate includes what the U.S. government has spent or pledged to spend through 2016 on homeland security, medical and disability care for wounded veterans, and the military and diplomatic campaigns against terrorism in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Syria.

When you factor in the interest America owes on the money it has borrowed to finance these wars, the number rises to almost $3.7 trillion. When you add in likely expenses for 2017 and spending obligations to veterans over the next four decades, the total increases to nearly $4.8 trillion.

It’s not just that America’s post-9/11 wars include some of the longest wars in U.S. history. Taken together, they’re also currently the second-most expensiveafter World World II, though defense spending as a percentage of the U.S. economy is lower today than it was during many previous conflicts.

And for 15 years now, the United States has been putting these wars on a credit card. Past U.S. wars were largely “pay as you go” affairs for which the government raised taxes, slashed non-military spending, borrowed money from the American public by selling war bonds, or chose some combination of these and other options, according to Neta Crawford, the author of the study and a political scientist at Boston University. The George W. Bush administration, by contrast, cut taxes in 2003, engaged in deficit spending after using up a budget surplus that it inherited from the Clinton administration, and sold only a small number of war bonds. (The Obama administration has taken a similar approach, though taxes have risen for people earning more than $400,000.)

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/09/cost-wars-iraq-afghanistan/499007/
http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/...osts of U.S. Post-9_11 NC Crawford FINAL .pdf
http://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/.../Costs of War through 2016 FINAL final v2.pdf
http://money.cnn.com/2017/08/21/news/economy/war-costs-afghanistan/index.html
https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-military-spending-cost-wars
https://www.forbes.com/sites/realsp...st-be-told-the-real-cost-of-war/#714fc9335246
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...-dollars-of-war-costs/?utm_term=.69982f62d728

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/22/opinion/americas-forever-wars.html
http://www.newsweek.com/forever-war-us-military-now-has-15000-troops-afghanistan-706573

 

[Engineer]

Not to worry, we'll pay for those with "Entitlement Reform".

 

[Atreus21]

I wish we'd see Republicans cut taxes and spending together, as would befit a responsible government.

 

[pauldun170]

Not to worry, we'll pay for those with "Entitlement Reform".

Step one - Buy votes with tax cuts.
Step two - Start complaining that we don't have money for "welfare queens" and that funding for medicare\medicaid should be cut because "Private industry knows best".
Step three - Remind everyone that Republicans cut taxes as states begin to the taxation shuffle to cover shift from fed to state responsibility.
Step four - During election cycle when Democrat opponent asks "How are going to pay for all this stuff", copy a reagan speech about demcrtas raising taxes and that only republicans will cut taxes and shrink government.
Step five - When people start doing math, create boogeyman or dust off old boogeyman. Put on support the troops cap.
etc
etc
etc

 

[fskimospy]

I wish we'd see Republicans cut taxes and spending together, as would befit a responsible government.

It's almost like their claims to care about deficits were transparent lies.

 

[dullard]

I wish we'd see Republicans cut taxes and spending together, as would befit a responsible government.

Republicans apparently think that if you starve the government, then it will eventually shrink back in size.

I prefer the opposite approach: all spending bills come with a mandatory tax to pay for it. Then any politician that votes to increase spending will also vote to increase taxes. That puts the tax blame on the current politicians that are creating the spending. This is far more realistic than kicking the debt can down the road for the next generation to fix. It probably would end up with far lower spending and far lower taxes overall than what the Republicans are about to do.

 

[Atreus21]

It's almost like their claims to care about deficits were transparent lies.

Shrug, I don't think anyone cares about reducing deficits really, beyond lip service.

 

[fskimospy]

Shrug, I don't think anyone cares about reducing deficits really, beyond lip service.

Right, but only one party talks about deficits and debts like they are a national crisis that has to be contained. Remember, Republicans declared themselves willing to cause a worldwide financial crisis in order to prevent US debt from increasing any further and that was only a few years back. It turns out they were only against debt when it was used to give health care to poor people instead of money to the rich.

It's important not to fall into 'bothsides'-ism as it just enables bad behavior. They lied, brazenly, for years on this issue. When the Democrats come back into power they will try and lie to you again about it. I hope you don't believe them.

 

[SMOGZINN]

Shrug, I don't think anyone cares about reducing deficits really, beyond lip service.

Certainly no one in power wants to take a critical look at what it would take to even get started doing that. Here is a big hint, no amount of welfare reform will make a significant reduction to the deficit. Any politician voting for more military spending is voting for more deficit.

 

[Engineer]

Certainly no one in power wants to take a critical look at what it would take to even get started doing that. Here is a big hint, no amount of welfare reform will make a significant reduction to the deficit. Any politician voting for more military spending is voting for more deficit.

'Entitlement Reform' - it's coming to a CONgressional theater near you.

 

[sandorski]

Right, but only one party talks about deficits and debts like they are a national crisis that has to be contained. Remember, Republicans declared themselves willing to cause a worldwide financial crisis in order to prevent US debt from increasing any further and that was only a few years back. It turns out they were only against debt when it was used to give health care to poor people instead of money to the rich.

It's important not to fall into 'bothsides'-ism as it just enables bad behavior. They lied, brazenly, for years on this issue. When the Democrats come back into power they will try and lie to you again about it. I hope you don't believe them.

This right here is what makes the US the greatest International threat. For domestic political purposes the rest of the world is fair game to be dicked around with. I'm not saying that another nation in a similar position wouldn't do similar things, but I will say that due to such a reality the rest of the world is often forced into doing what it can to undermine the US. It will likely collapse under its' own weight, but at some point the US will need to be brought down if it continues on its' current path.