SPENDING THIS MONEY ON THE IRAQ WAR IS ESSENTIAL UNLESS YOU HATE FREEDOM
SPENDING THIS MONEY ON THE STIMULUS IS FRIVOLOUS AND WASTEFUL AND A BURDEN ON OUR CHILDREN
graph via poverty
Senior Bush administration aides certainly pooh-poohed worrisome estimates in the run-up to the war. Former White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey reckoned that the conflict would cost $100 billion to $200 billion; Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld later called his estimate “baloney.” Administration officials insisted that the costs would be more like $50 billion to $60 billion. In April 2003, Andrew S. Natsios, the thoughtful head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said on “Nightline” that reconstructing Iraq would cost the American taxpayer just $1.7 billion. Ted Koppel, in disbelief, pressed Natsios on the question, but Natsios stuck to his guns. Others in the administration, such as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, hoped that U.S. partners would chip in, as they had in the 1991 Persian Gulf War, or that Iraq’s oil would pay for the damages.
Ah, priorities.
- No need to haggle on spending if you have incompetent people lowballing and lying about its scope from the outset.
- If Karl Rove worked for the Democrats, it would be conventional wisdom that not supporting the stimulus is unamerican.
