deficit spending Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

Local Edge Radio – Focus on Jobs

A couple weeks ago I hosted local edge radio and I spent the whole segment talking about the fact that our government needs to focus on jobs like a laser. Our problem is not our debt. Deficit spending is not what is on the minds of the average American. The average American is wondering how to make ends meet. The average American is either out of work or knows somebody who’s out of work. This is what we need to fix. In my opinion, there’s nothing more important than fixing our job situation. There’s plenty of blame to go around. Whether you want to blame the Obama administration for not asking for a large enough stimulus in order to really fix the jobs problem or you’d like to blame House and Senate Republicans for blocking every jobs bill since the stimulus – the bottom line is that it really doesn’t matter whose fault it is. The problem is that neither party is 100% focused on jobs.

The job situation is improving, but we have to do better. Economists calculate that at our current rate we will not achieve full employment (unemployment rate below 5%) for another five – seven years. Most Americans should not have to suffer for five to seven years because we don’t have the political will to do what’s necessary. We need to fix this problem.

LER - jobs discussion [ 12:23 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Brother, can you spare $4 trillion?

I continue to be flabbergasted by the callousness of Republicans. Eric Cantor has decided that $2 billion isn’t worth worrying about. I guess if you can’t worry about $2 billion then maybe $4 trillion could get his attention, maybe. The fact that the direct and indirect costs of the war could be as much as $4 trillion is not really a revelation to me. The problem I have is that Republicans continue to insist that throughout the Bush administration these wars were not to be expensive. As a matter fact, they suggested that it would be cheap. Remember how Donald Rumsfeld and his minions suggested that Iraq would pay for itself using oil revenues? We never even had the opportunity to have a real debate over the cost of the war because the wars were “paid for” by supplemental funding (deficit spending). Not once did Republicans stand up as a group and state they were spending an enormous amount of money and getting almost nothing in return. Not one of them said that we needed to cut something in order to pay for the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. Not one of them suggested that we needed to raise revenues in order to pay for these wars. Yet, now, when we try to spend money to stimulate the economy and make life better for the middle class, the Republicans are having none of it. Their hypocrisy is infuriating.

From Yahoo News:

When President Barack Obama cited cost as a reason to bring troops home from Afghanistan, he referred to a $1 trillion price tag for America’s wars.

Staggering as it is, that figure grossly underestimates the total cost of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the U.S. Treasury and ignores more imposing costs yet to come, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The final bill will run at least $3.7 trillion and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project “Costs of War” by Brown University’s Watson Institute for International Studies. (http://www.costsofwar.org)

In the 10 years since U.S. troops went into Afghanistan to root out the al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11, 2001, attacks, spending on the conflicts totaled $2.3 trillion to $2.7 trillion.

Those numbers will continue to soar when considering often overlooked costs such as long-term obligations to wounded veterans and projected war spending from 2012 through 2020. The estimates do not include at least $1 trillion more in interest payments coming due and many billions more in expenses that cannot be counted, according to the study. (more…)