It's The Iraqonomy Stupid

I got interviewed by one of my favorite reporters earlier this week, someone who not only actually understands new media but also does shocking things like actually talk to real people and not just take campaign talking points as fact.

The question was now that the economy is the Number One issue and not Iraq, how does that impact the candidates and their chances? The article and the quote at the end from yours truly is here.

As I was speaking with Christina, I was thinking about a chart that Hale Stewart had included in a great post here , and I fully admit to being a huge fan of Hale's. When you read through the post, and see the number of charts that Hale uses, and Hale loves his charts, you start to see a basic economic trend.

The numbers really aren't that bad until 2004 when a couple of things happened. The full impact of the Bush Tax Cuts started to be felt, especially the emergency cuts that were enacted in 2002. What George Bush did was, for the first time in our history, take a nation at war and instead of asking for sacrifice, he slashed the government's revenue.

This mantra of "borrow and spend" versus "tax and pay" meant that as the country faced the growing expense of the war, we had less and less money to pay for it. It's the same simple economic fact that is happening to millions of Americans right now. If you have less money and more bills, you go into debt. Your personal credit suffers just like our nation's credit has suffered -- see far more smarter people than I about the issue of the weak dollar.

While there are a number of factors behind the rise of the cost of oil, the fact is that oil was under $40 a barrel before the Iraq War was started, and since that time, it has gone straight up -- why? We created tremendous instability in the largest and most important oil producing part of the world. Instability causes increases in price.

What is the further impact of the war?

It's trickle down impact is real, and massive. Tens of thousands of National Guard members leaving their jobs and not earning their salaries at their full time jobs, real impact. The cost to cities and towns as they make up the cost of replacing firemen and po