"The Raft of the Medusa" - Théodore GéricaultDavid Seaton's News Links
If anything good at all comes out of this war it will be people really beginning to ask the important political questions. Who are we? Where are we going? Is there any alternative to what we are doing? First asking themselves, then asking the system. DS
Price tag for war in Iraq on track to top $500 billion - McClatchy Abstract: Congressional Democrats and Bush agree that they cannot let their dispute over a withdrawal timetable block the latest cash installment for Iraq. Once that political fight is resolved, Congress can focus on the president's request for $116 billion more for the war in the fiscal year that starts on Sept. 1. The combined spending requests would push the total for Iraq to $564 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. What could that kind of money buy? A college education - tuition, fees, room and board at a public university - for about half of the nation's 17 million high-school-age teenagers. Pre-school for every 3- and 4-year-old in the country for the next eight years. A year's stay in an assisted-living facility for about half of the 35 million Americans age 65 or older. Not surprisingly, opinions about the cost of the war track opinions about the war itself. "If it's really vital, then whatever it costs, we should pay it. If it isn't, whatever we pay is too much," said Robert Hormats, author of "The Price of Liberty," a newly published book that examines the financing of America's wars. Before the war, administration officials confidently predicted that the conflict would cost about $50 billion. White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey lost his job after he offered a $200 billion estimate - a prediction that drew scorn from his administration colleagues. "They had no concept of what they were getting into in terms of lives or cost," said Winslow Wheeler, who monitors defense spending for the Center for Defense Information, a nonpartisan research institute. READ IT ALL
If anything good at all comes out of this war it will be people really beginning to ask the important political questions. Who are we? Where are we going? Is there any alternative to what we are doing? First asking themselves, then asking the system. DS
Price tag for war in Iraq on track to top $500 billion - McClatchy Abstract: Congressional Democrats and Bush agree that they cannot let their dispute over a withdrawal timetable block the latest cash installment for Iraq. Once that political fight is resolved, Congress can focus on the president's request for $116 billion more for the war in the fiscal year that starts on Sept. 1. The combined spending requests would push the total for Iraq to $564 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. What could that kind of money buy? A college education - tuition, fees, room and board at a public university - for about half of the nation's 17 million high-school-age teenagers. Pre-school for every 3- and 4-year-old in the country for the next eight years. A year's stay in an assisted-living facility for about half of the 35 million Americans age 65 or older. Not surprisingly, opinions about the cost of the war track opinions about the war itself. "If it's really vital, then whatever it costs, we should pay it. If it isn't, whatever we pay is too much," said Robert Hormats, author of "The Price of Liberty," a newly published book that examines the financing of America's wars. Before the war, administration officials confidently predicted that the conflict would cost about $50 billion. White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey lost his job after he offered a $200 billion estimate - a prediction that drew scorn from his administration colleagues. "They had no concept of what they were getting into in terms of lives or cost," said Winslow Wheeler, who monitors defense spending for the Center for Defense Information, a nonpartisan research institute. READ IT ALL
2 comments:
A ga-billion ponys. [they're really cheap].
Yeah, I had that hope in the Viet Nam
"era"..
Dream on.
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