Thursday, July 28, 2011

Stating the Obvious

It seems that lately all I've been hearing about is the budget crisis. And yet in all the coverage I've been reading, I haven't yet heard anything about the financial impact of all the wars the US is currently involved in. Maybe I've just been reading the wrong articles. But allow me to state the obvious here:

At some point, someone is going to have to pay for all these wars.

At every other point in American history up until now the government has always raised taxes when it went to war. This is in recognition of the basic principle that wars cost money.

The Bush administration was the first administration in history to lower taxes while fighting a war--two wars. (Even after Bush went to war, he continued to cut taxes--LINK HERE.)

We are now, by some estimates, currently involved in 4 wars (Afghanistan, the lingering presence in Iraq, Libya, and the operations in Pakistan). All of these wars have all been funded by borrowing money.

I know it's unpopular to say this, but at some point somebody is going to have to pay for these wars.

Link of the Day
The war everyone forgot

1 comment:

Daniel J. Luke said...

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/print/2011/07/the-chart-that-should-accompany-all-discussions-of-the-debt-ceiling/242484/