Report: Bush masked cost of wars that could top $1.7 trillion

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Source: The Raw Story

Even if Barack Obama draws down troops in Iraq like he's promised, a new report finds the US is on pace to have spent nearly $2 trillion on military operations including Iraq and Afghanistan over the next decade.

The nonpartisan Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments found that the $687 billion spent so far on Iraq has cost the US more than every conflict aside from World War II. With the $184 billion in Afghanistan, the two main conflicts of the war on terror have proved to be 50 percent more expensive than Vietnam.

An author of the report said President Bush's decision to circumvent the traditional budget process is to blame for the exceedingly high costs.

The reliance on supplemental funding creates a misleading picture of overall requirements, said Steven Kosiak, vice president of budget studies at CSBA and author of the report, during a briefing on Monday. "A sound budgeting process forces policymakers to recognize the true costs of their policy choices," he said.

Read more: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Report_Cost_of_wars_could_top_1216.html

[atomic-fly]

1. i predict a Halliburton bailout coming soon...

it's the only way to run a business.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

2. Everything is supplemental these days.

Inflation.
Unemployment.
Money supply.
Growth.
Deficits.
Facts.

[gristy]

4. Too big to fail!

:(

[Bjorn Against]

3. They tell us we can afford to spend trillions to destroy another country...

And then they turn around and tell us that we can't afford to invest in our own country.

[high density]

6. I know, isn't it grand?

All of these Repukes who once voted for endless "defense" spending are now whining about the budget deficit after Obama has said he plans to spend money on domestic issues. I think their plan was to get us in such bad shape so they'd have an argument to drop things like Social Security and Medicare.

[truedelphi]

8. And the plan is looking pretty fool proof right now.

We have now guaranteed, loaned, and outright given close to EIGHT TRILLION bucks under the guise of BailOuts.

Social Security - bye bye.

Public eduction, free to every American child - Bye Bye.

MediCare - Bye Bye.

Funding for infrastructure - Bye Bye.

Estimated Value of our currency - Toilet Paper.

[phusion]

5. and people bitch

about the $200 million we spent on a commuter train in New Mexico...

:(

[Grins]

7. Writer wanted. Preferably in English.

"...a new report finds the US is on pace to have spent nearly $2 trillion on military operations including Iraq and Afghanistan over the next decade."

Is this one of Drinkey McStupid's "Is our children learning?" victims? He failed, and so did his editor!

Sorry. It just caught my eye.

[Mari333]

9. and people wonder why the US is bankrupt

when we are willing to stop being an empire, we will find our way. this information is the elephant in the living room that no one ever wants to talk about.
we need to get out of iraq and afghanistan, and stop letting the corporatists and military corporatists decide what the vision of the united states is all about. . until then, we are going to stay bankrupt.