The Bailout and the War

The man-on-the-street (as opposed to Washington elite) conventional wisdom is pretty clear: Taxpayers shouldn't have to pay $700 billion for a no-strings-attached plan to bail out people who got themselves into a disastrous mess through their own damn fault -- people who should have known that everything was bound to head south, but stuck their heads in the sand and carried on with their own inept, misguided, poorly judged plans.

Speaking of which, the Iraq war has already cost taxpayers about $700 billion and is likely to end up costing us anywhere from $1 to $4 trillion.

Assuming there is a foreign policy debate on Saturday, Obama should take the opportunity to draw connections between the mismanagement of the war and the economy. Forget apple pies, if we hadn't gone to war, we could have gotten the bailout free and had some left over for a party. With apple pies!

Jokes aside, Americans have been thinking a lot this week about what $700 billion could buy, including college educations for 5.4 million people and social security benefits for all Americans with $120 billion to spare. McCain wants to continue the war indefinitely. Now more than ever, Obama should make financing it part of the calculus.

Comments

[spacklewoof]

How about, instead of the top-down bailout, we propose something akin to the following:
$700,000,000,000.00 could be used to make $150,000.00 payments on about 4.7 million home loans. Do that, let us re-finance the rest and call it good. Then we have more money in our pockets due to the refinance to prop up other parts of the economy. The banks get the money, but it goes to the bottom line of real people, making a real impact in less than a month. It reduces foreclosures because people can make the lower payment easier, it puts a stop in dropping house prices, gives us more money to pay for food, clothing,electric, water, etc and it can happen as soon as the funds are made available.

Alternately, $50,000 payments could be made to 14.1 million houses.

Starting with houses in foreclosure.

[BeyondBelief]

The cost of the war is the cause of the financial crises and the collapse of the US economy.
Here is a financial analysis from Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz made already last February, very clear about what would happen:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23286149-2703,00.html

[djarvis]

Very true, and this would be a good way to pivot from a question about the Iraq war to the bailout of our economy. Since Iraq has a $79 billion surplus that they aren't spending, it would make sense for them to use that money for their reconstruction, instead of the $10 billion a month that we are now spending on the war in Iraq.

[DuPageDem]

It's no coincidence that the Iraq occupation and the fat-cat criminal subsidy proposal are being sold to us using idential fear-fueled marketing campaigns. They both are about the same thing: Bankrupting the country so the middle class will be sentenced to permanent servitude. Scared and hungry people work for cheap, just where our transnational corporate overlords want us.

[Craig]

At tax time last year, independent analysts reported that 42% of tax revenues went to the military (25% budgetes and the remainder as interest payments on prior military over-spending) this is by far the largest pork in the room. By comparison the US spends mor than 10x what Russia and China spend on their respective military budget (US is around $600 billion, Russia around $50 billion, and China around $40 billion--approximate from memory).

No wonder we can't compete in some world markets when our revenues are so badly apportioned. But more tax cuts for the wealth will surely fix everything.

If most taxpayers were aware of how much was spent on the military, there would be some spontaneous "I won't take this any more".

We can meet our objectives by intense cooperation with other countries rather than going it alone. Over 700 military bases in 130 countries is beyond defense. It is more like imperial ambitions,

[Decipherer]

Imagine the position this country would be in today had Al Gore become president in 2001, but for the intervention by the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of George W. Bush.

The country had a $2+ trillion surplus and would have had competent management in place which would have listened closely when it became apparent that an attack by al Qa'eda was being planned and would have prevented it.

That, in turn, would have spared us the awful aftermath of a nation gone mad, led by a president that was intent on exploiting the fear of another attack by spending the surplus and billions more on a host of reckless "investments" like the war on Iraq.

Then there is the Katrina and Rita nightmare of total BushCo incompetence and negligence.

Now comes the latest episode of fearmongering -- the $700 billion (and probably much more) Wall Street bailout.

Imagine how much could have been done with all that squandered wealth, including taking major steps to seriously reduce our nation's grotesque carbon footprint, limit imports of fossil fuels, and building the next world-leading green industries described by Gore and Tom Friedman, the latter's book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded" lays out a clear plan of action that would transform our country.

The damage over the last eight years in nearly incalculable, but by electing Barack Obama and a progressive Congress, we can turn this around. It will take time and sacrifice, but it can be done before it is too late.

[researcher]

the imperialist country with bases all over the world and wars for profits is coming down

the world will be safer for it

but then international star palin will fix things up

what a country were such a person can be vp

nations deserve their leaders and we are no exception

we have sunk so low with our imperialism we now torture people

and training our army to quell riots in american streets

low baby low

[PADDYWHACK]

In a few years we'll all be Joads,but not the profiteers.I love that our gov. represents the Neocons and we can go to hell

[schatsie]

It is very strange that McCain is against the bailout,,, really a pretty smooth move for the republicans...Why did the Dems have to even think of a moratorium on the capital gains taxes when that is totally aimed toward the fat cats who got us into this mess...

Bush has waged economic class warfare for the last 8 years and he did not have that much experience and frankly he also ran on the Change train..McCain is going to take credit for anything that is done for the bottom 60%....

I think Obama needs an ad about how the banks just gave away the money and then applied Pay Day Loan rates...It is ridiculous for someone with a 75,000 mortgage for 30 years to be paying $1800 per month for that....someone is raking in the interest, then when the house of cards crumbles and they have collected all of that interest, then they dump the mortgage on the Feds as a bad debt...

This is CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE on the part of the banks and they have a resposibility to their stockholders and depositors and they should go to jail for covering up the bad loans along with the blankety blank auditors who signed off on the financials...

[rickhillis]

look i really need to tell you this i am a 38 yr old semi retired family man i came from nothing and wht i have obtained in my life i have had to work hard for.

so with that said i want you to know i can fix this problem it is very simple please consider this there is no way any american will ever be able to see any benifits from what this bail out will do. if you want to help 95% of americans we need an energy break make the fuel and power companys go down, cap gas and deisal 2.00 a gallon and cut power bills in half for just 1 year 2 years at the most. then make all the companys refinace there bad loans with a little of goverment money and a council to over see it. most americans are paying 1 days pay just to go back and forth to work for a week and a 5 days a month to pay light bill. this is just a few examples. you could put 300 to 500 a month back it the average americans pockets it is simple math. you want to ues a trickle down effect it will take to long to trickle if you do this it will start makin a differance in weeks.

hope someone reads this.

i have very little to gain from this letter but would love to see the help for others

thank you rick hillis

[Cherlesq]

let's sell Alaska to Russia for 700B

[jcorrington]

Yeah, I like it!!

[rickhillis]

look i really need to tell you this i am a 38 yr old semi retired family man i came from nothing and wht i have obtained in my life i have had to work hard for.

so with that said i want you to know i can fix this problem it is very simple please consider this there is no way any american will ever be able to see any benifits from what this bail out will do. if you want to help 95% of americans we need an energy break make the fuel and power companys go down, cap gas and deisal 2.00 a gallon and cut power bills in half for just 1 year 2 years at the most. then make all the companys refinace there bad loans with a little of goverment money and a council to over see it. most americans are paying 1 days pay just to go back and forth to work for a week and a 5 days a month to pay light bill. this is just a few examples. you could put 300 to 500 a month back it the average americans pockets it is simple math. you want to ues a trickle down effect it will take to long to trickle if you do this it will start makin a differance in weeks.

hope someone reads this.

i have very little to gain from this letter but would love to see the help for others

thank you

[wsblake]

even if we left today iraq will still wind up costing us $3,000,000,000,000.00 -- for a completely unncessary ,immoral, obscene,illegal war for oil, and American-Israeli hegemony in the middle east- and no one even mentions it- not congress, not the candidates, not the press, not bush and not most voters

[CyrusBeaucephus]

its the proverbial elephant in the room

[caterpol]

From everything I've read, the Iraq invasion is still on the credit card. It's not factored into the budget.

We're already bankrupt. What's $700 billion more?

[Sundialsvc4]

Let's change some words here.

The war has resulted in a GROSS PROFIT of $4 to $7 trillion.

It promises, upon its successful completion, to hand more than $12 Trillion worth of Middle Eastern oil to ... umm ... to "companies." That is to say, to "multi-national" companies. Who will, of course, be able to sell that oil, again at a profit, to the people of the United States.

Go surf to Wikipedia and look up "military industrial complex." Ike Eisenhower's warning to the nation is written there. (Remember that this man was a FIVE-star General.) Let the words really, really sink in.

Imagine that you are not just "a successful businessman" but utterly sociopathic. Let that thought really, really sink in. If you would stop at nothing, how far would you go?

If you were such a man or woman, and when you walked by they called you "Your Honor" or "Senator" or even "Mister President," and once again, you would stop at nothing ...

Be afraid. Be very afraid. And, for God's sake, IMPEACH!

[ChaucerDaisy]

i AGREE. Let's change some words indeed. Let's start with the word, "war."

There is no "war." No "war" has ever been declared.

" A military conflict to find WMDs in Iraq" was authorized in 2003.

I so agree with you about the power of WORDS. BushCo knows the power of the word "war," i.e. war on terror, war on drugs, etc. So, go on the offensive. Stop saying the word, "war." Stop allowing King George and Prince Dick to use imprecise words to bully us. There is no legal, declared WAR. Call it what it is. Keep saying "a military conflict to find WMDs." That's the precise, legal definition.

Realize that all laws, treaties, books (including all religious documents), are composed of one thing: WORDS. When WE, the People, begin using precise language, precise words, that cost us nothing except discipline, then we change the conversation. After all, why are we occupying Iraq and spending trillions ofhard-earned dollars to find WMDs in Iraq when we've known since 2004 that there are none there? Do not allow King George to define this military invasion as a "War" without challenging him.

And, once we realize the power of precise words, let's get started on the marketing slogans, "Pro Choice and Pro Life" that are completely interchangeable and do nothing but distract us from the real conversation of a pregnant female's (a minority group's) "rights."

At the very least, start impeachment hearings for history's sake.

[NoSillyName]

If all of our country's money hadn't been wasted or stolen (remember that staggering number of "missing" cash from a few years ago?) in Itaq, we wouldn't be in this mess. Bush has depleted our Treasury.