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Tuesday, February 26, 2008
The Economic Costs of War
Following Craig's post below covering the Feb. 8 CRS report on the fiscal costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, today's Center for American Progress (CAP) report on "The Economic Costs of War" is timely.
As total war costs rocket toward the $1 trillion mark, it is instructive to recall the reasonable cost projections in the $200-300 billion range offered in 2002 and 2003 by General Shinseki and Senior Economic Advisor Lawrence Lindsey -- and how quickly thereafter they were relieved of their positions. Even more outlandish, the CAP report recalls, are these...
PRE-WAR MISCALCULATIONS: The Bush administration was anxious to go to war, but not anxious to pay for it. In April 2003, then-administrator of AID Andrew Natsios pledged that American taxpayers would pay no more than $1.7 billion to reconstruct Iraq. In March 2003, Paul Wolfowitz infamously predicted that Iraq would be able to "finance its own reconstruction." In reality, total Iraq war requests and authorizations have amounted to $624 billion [as of a year ago -- DC]. Yet just two months after announcing the invasion of Iraq, Bush ordered the first major wartime taxcut in history.The debt was $5.7 trillion when Bush took office; it will be $10.3 trillion by the time he leaves.
Americans are not unmindful of these war costs and their fiscal and economic consequences. The way to get the country out of recession is to get the country out of Iraq, according to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll taken this month. 48 percent said a pullout would help fix the country's economic problems "a great deal," and an additional 20 percent said it would help at least somewhat.
Posted by Dana Chasin
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