Finally, Something to Thank George Bush For

I have been thinking hard about what I can cherish and treasure from the Bush White House years, one simple thing I have to be thankful to Dubya for, and I have found it.

Perspective. Bush's Iraq war has given me a sense of scale about money that's actually relieved me of a lot of worrying and fretting.

One month of the war in Iraq is costing this country an estimated $10 billion dollars. Once you use that as a yardstick, no other expense, no other crisis seems as expensive, as intractable and terrifying as it once did. A $15 billion California budget deficit? No sweat! It's only six weeks' worth of war Iraq dollars! The Bear Sterns bailout -- pshaw, that's only three months in Iraq war dollars. And a possible $40 billion to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? A mere quarterly check for the Iraq war.

And that $300 pair of shoes I've had my eye on but told myself I couldn't possibly afford? In Iraq war bucks, it's the change they don't bother to pick up from the sidewalk.

So to paraphrase Jack Valenti's line about Lyndon Johnson in the White House, I now sleep better knowing that virtually nothing we might do here at home would cost as much as the Iraq war is costing us already.

Comments

[Phineus]

hey if you think the war in Iraq is pricey wait to we get socielized healthcare!!

[lisakaz2]

Guess what, it would have been cheaper if Booo$h had invested in America rather than p'd money away lining the pockets of his pals at taxpayer expense.

[saltzman21]

The USA lost the war today. The following report is horrific.
SHANGHAI, China " China and Iraq have signed a $3 billion deal revising a prewar agreement for China's biggest oil company to help develop the Ahdab oil field, an official at the Iraq's Oil Ministry said Thursday.

The deal, restoring a project canceled after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, was signed late Wednesday by Chinese officials and Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani.

"The initial agreement has been signed, and we are waiting to see the approval of both governments," said Sarhad Fatah, a spokesman at the Iraqi Embassy in Beijing.

Fatah would not disclose the value of the deal, but an official at the Oil Ministry in Baghdad confirmed it would be worth $3 billion. He requested anonomity because the agreement hasn't been approved by the cabinet yet.

Major oil companies have been reluctant to commit to deals in Iraq because Baghdad has yet to enact a law to govern the oil industry.

The government of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein signed a deal in 1997 with China's oil company, government-owned China National Petroleum Corp. It was to take effect once U.N. sanctions on Iraq's oil industry were lifted.

That contract, worth $1.2 billion at the time, gave a subsidiary of the Chinese company concessions to develop the field on a production-sharing basis for 22 years.


Associated Press researcher Bonnie Cao in Beijing and Sinan Salaheddin in Baghdad contributed to report.

[JackHeffez]

The purpose of the original publication is to demonstrate how fundamental physics research in space can provide the knowledge needed to address outstanding questions at the intersection of physics and astronomy.

[Herrington]

Shockingly correct!

[jamesh1954]

On a bit larger scale Universal Healthcare would only be 7 months of Iraqi war bucks. Things are indeed looking up.

[JimR]

And here I am stressing about paying for a new car! That's chump change!

[c64audio]

lol :)