Reflections on the "New American" Revolution
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
The Real Cost of U.S. War Policy
... The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost American taxpayers more than $314 billion so far and the Bush's administration's open- ended commitment has rightly raised concerns, even among war supporters.
At the rate the United States is spending to fund the war efforts, the military campaigns could become the most expensive operations in the past 60 years, far exceeding the costs of the Korean and Vietnam wars. One nonpartisan Washington think tank estimates that the cost of the war in Iraq could exceed $700 billion -- a remarkable sum considering that polls show a majority of American believe that the war wasn't worth starting and feel that they are no safer today than they were before Sept. 11, 2001.
Such mind-numbing spending on wars with no discernible exit strategy is all the more troublesome because it has occurred outside the normal budget process, with a series of pay-as-you-go supplemental appropriations. The stealth-funding approach has come without comparable reductions in other government programs, thus saddling the country with an enormous debt burden that exceeded more than $400 billion last year.
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