Bush asks for $87 Billion

[burritomama]

As expected, he also asked for the UN to come on in.

Anyone else catch the speech?

I actually missed it but am catching up with all the post-speech commentary on the radio.

[TiredX2]

What am I missing here?

Kay

[burritomama]

Bush's speech regarding where we are now in Iraq and where we are going from here.

And sorry about the typo - a result of poor skills and wishful thinking. He asked for 87 BILLION from the Congress.

[JessicaS]

I saw that!! 87 BILLION!!! I wonder where they are going to get that from..or do I really want to know?

[TiredX2]

Okay, thats what I figured it was (87 billion for post-war iraq).

BTW, I *love* your name. When DD was small and swaddled we would call her "burrito baby."

kay

[Delilah]

That's enough money to

send 870,000 college students to college for four years at $25,000 a year. They'd have to pinch their pennies and go to state colleges/universities, but it could be done. Or, 4,350,000 students for one year at $20,000 a year.

[Marlena]

Re: That's enough money to

Originally posted by Delilah
send 870,000 college students to college for four years at $25,000 a year. They'd have to pinch their pennies and go to state colleges/universities, but it could be done. Or, 4,350,000 students for one year at $20,000 a year.

Ah, but that would be WELFARE, Delilah.

Maybe we could all save a whole scad of money if we all pitched in and bought Bush one of those vaccuum pumps to enlarge his penis. That way, he'd maybe not feel compelled to go starting wars and occupations all over the world. Whaddya say?

[EnviroBecca]

I thought this was the most disturbing line in the speech: "We have learned that terrorist attacks are not caused by the use of strength - they are invited by the perception of weakness. " NO, that is NOT what we have learned! Anyone paying the scantest attention to the objective evidence can see that al-Qaida attacked us because of our strength and that our use of brute strength in the Middle East is just making them hate us more.

I hope he doesn't get the money. I hope a majority of Americans won't stand for this.

[Delilah]

Thank you!

I'm so glad you said that. It is so true. Instead, Bush feeds the masses with his lines about "perception of weakness" and "they hate us for our freedoms".

[Marlena]

It is gratifying to see that no other country appears to be indulging Bush following Sunday's speech:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2003Sep8.html

Fifty British troops have died in the war, 11 since May 1, when Bush declared major combat operations over. Blair has continued to support the U.S.-led military action, despite strong opposition within his own ruling Labor Party and steadily sinking approval numbers in the polls.

Elsewhere, reaction was lukewarm. Australia, which contributed 2,000 troops to the U.S.-led military assault on Iraq, has ruled out sending soldiers to engage in peacekeeping. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, in a radio interview today, applauded Bush for emphasizing that "the job is not finished in Iraq."

Japan, which in the past has been quick to support peace-keeping initiatives, offered a noncommittal response. A spokesman for Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, voiced a basic understanding of Bush's call for Japan and Europe to chip in funds to help the security and reconstruction effort, but took the issue no further, the AP reported.

[SpiralWoman]

are 100 millions in a billion?

100
x100
=10,000
x100
=1,000,000
x100
=100,000,000 that looks like 100 millions & I think you need another zero to be 1 billion: like this "1,000,000,000" right?
So 1 billion would actually be 1000 millions in that case?
Yeah, that's how Delilah's math worked out.

I just wanted to take a minute to reflect on exactly how much money that is. Maybe he should take it out of his re-election fund.:

[Tigerchild]

This *does* bring up an interesting thought...

Does a number figure, as far as money goes, mean ANYTHING to a reasonably well-off nation anymore?

I seriously doubt that we have "gold backing" for even ONE trillion dollars over at Fort Knox. And no one's going to call down all the debts that the US owes here and there at once, because they don't want the same thing to happen to them.

These numbers are astounding, but I'm not really sure they mean a damn thing. Kind of like the dot-com boom. All inflated prices, but absolutely NOTHING to back it up. And unlike the stock market, does it really matter?

The philosophy *almost* makes me want to study economics.

$87 million...all that translates to me is more Stuff To Blow Sh!t up With. Which is happening all the time anyway, it's just that we need to replace what we've already used and issue paychecks to more people over there. I don't think the number matters.

Bush's speech said absolutely nothing. It served no purpose (since DUH, no one thought we were pulling out of Iraq or were 'done' anyhow) other than perhaps a lame non-response to the beginnings of Democrats (finally!) starting to challenge the administration now that we're entering 2004 election season.

It was so full of nothingness, that NPR didn't even bother to overanalyze it (you could have pushed me over with a feather) afterwards, just went right back to regular programming.

[Joyce in the mts.]

It is 87 BILLION not million...big difference!

Could the title of this thread be corrected to reflect that it is BILLIONS that we are talking about?

As some have said here, folks don't really know or think in terms of what is a billion vs. what is a million. We can never dream of that much money, either way, so we just can't envision it. I would daresay that many folks just shut down when such monstrous amounts are bandied about. Therein lies something that the powers count on...that it is beyond most people.

You know, there are those who say also, that this figure is really underestimated.

I say let the idiot king have his billions; May it weigh heavily like a millstone around his neck as he struggles to swim through the currents of the '04 election. Might be just enough rope, y'know?

(Did anyone see how Dr. Dean talked about ways in which this $ could be used in our own country? I am hoping that all the Dems will speak out on that and that people will listen and begin to question for themselves.)

OT:
New twist: Reservists' stays in Iraq have been extended a year now-just saw that in the news. That oughtta go over like a lead balloon with their families. And won't the Iraqis be happy too?

Some have complained that certain candidate hopefuls would not bring troops home immediately if elected. This sounds somewhat uninformed to me, since I speculate that no matter WHO is president, it will be impossible to just yank every US soldier out and that be that. I suspect that there is a whole sequence of events that must happen before anyone can leave, no matter who is president, even if by some miracle the decision were made today to withdraw. It's called an exit plan. Far as I know, King George has none currently (but I could be wrong on that- been wrong before and will be again, no doubt).

This will be a very delicate operation for the next administration and whomever receives that burden from this administration, (I am cautiously optimistic) has my respect for working out an exit plan, to the best of their ability given the mess they will inherit. We need also to remember that whatever happens can only happen after inauguration in January '05 (unless lightning were to strike something or other...).

Better them than me!...Joyce in the mts., who will humble herself and vote for Anyone but Bush in '04; May it be a landslide that cannot be manipulated by SCOTUS.

[burritomama]

I AM so sorry for the awful typo in the title - I just don't know how to fix it....

yeah, what couldn't we buy with all that $$$.

I do hope the dems stand up to this...we'll see.

And yes, the speech is really all about next year and the campaign to, gosh, I was going to say "re-elect the president" but that doesn't quite fit the situation...at elast, not as I see it.

[Delilah]

If $87,000,000,000

didn't really mean that much to a nation our size, then the Pentagon wouldn't be cutting hazard pay for all deployed soldiers in N. Korea and Afghanistan and anywhere but Iraq. But the money must add up, so it does matter. If it didn't matter, Bush wouldn't have held back federal employees' pay raises to 2%. It matters because millions are also going to foreign soldiers to participate in the policing and occupation of Iraq as mercenaries (they are paid troops, not there for their own benefit, hence mercenaries).

I believe a Republican senator told Wolfowizc today something like "The US Congress is not the ATM for the Pentagon!"

the news showed a graphic which reflected the cost of Vietnam as much more significant, at 12% of US budget, almost $500 billion. But that was over ten years! So it was more like an average of $50 billion a year.

[JessicaS]

Oops, I hadn't noticed it said Million instead of Billion, I fixed it.

[SpiralWoman]

T BTW, any thread starter can change their title line now, just use the edit button!

[Els' 3 Ones]

just to remind y'all that the 87 billion is in ADDITION to the 79 billion congress approved last year.

That brings the total to 166 billion


From the Washington Post:

The $87 Billion Question

reporter Jonathan Weisman compared the cost of the latest request to other government spending, noting that the $87 billion request is nearly triple the amount the federal government plans to spend on elementary and secondary education this year, and more than twice as much as the budget for homeland security.

Weisman, using Yale University economist William D. Nordhaus as a source, also noted that the $166 billion that has been spent or requested exceeds "the inflation-adjusted costs of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish American War and the Persian Gulf War combined" and "approaches the $191 billion inflation-adjusted cost of World War I."

Late last year, White House economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey lost his job after telling The Wall Street Journal that the war could cost as much as $200 million (in retrospect, maybe he got in trouble for underestimating).

anyone else think they knew going in?

Contact your congress and tell them how YOU want them to vote!


El

[EFmom]

I really don't know what to think about all this other than Shrub is the worst dissembler ever. When he was beating the war drums, this issue was raised over and over again, but he refused to give any estimate for what all this reconstruction might cost because he didn't want people worrying their pretty heads about it and actually making an informed decision.

I was completely opposed to this war. But now that we have utterly destroyed the infrastructure of the country, what are we supposed to do about it now? Is it right for us to just walk away and leave Iraq without electrical power, clean water, health care, food, security, etc.? I guess I think that since we broke it by bombing the tar out of it, we have an obligation to fix it. We've already made the world a much less stable place and I think walking away from our responsibility will only make it worse.

I honestly hope that other countries in the UN do NOT help with this reconstruction. We sure didn't wait for their permission to wreak havoc in the Middle East, we had to go it nearly alone because of Shrub & Co.'s ego. Well, now I think we ought to realize the full repercussion of that so that we don't do it again.

For a start, I think it should be financed by repealing all Shrub's irresponsible tax cuts. And just as we got a letter from the IRS paid for by our taxes telling us what a favor Shrub did us, we should get another letter explaining that now we need to pay for his war.

[Delilah]

We really can't walk away from it, can we?

I think that is why it is referred to as a quagmire now. And without additional troop support, our troops remain more vulnerable.

We shouldn't walk away from the mess we made, just like we shouldn't have asked Iraqis who wanted to oppose Hussein to come forward and fight him in 1991 and then turn on them. That's why there is this massive gravesite the Army is discussing having discovered. Those are Hussein's opposition that GHW Bush 41 "outed" in 1991.