Question for Democrats

[dnf777]

Possibly the most intelligent post ever on POTUS place (except for the last line).

I just said we need him....not necessarily for President!

[JDogger]

So much for civil discourse.

My apologies, Hookset. My comments we're uncalled for.

[Marty Lee]

does anyone know how much of the "five trillion defict" quoted is related to the war in Iraq? Also remember George Bush was faced with some things we havent seen since Pearl Hatbour. you may not agree on the war but we had to do something. i remeber being in "shock and awe" for those first few days and was and still am proud to be an American. while i cannot say i am in the least bit happy with W's policies as a whole i think we should at least realize that he/we were put in some very diificult situations and try to remember how we got there.

[dnf777]

None of the $5 trillion includes the war. That's supplemental spending that our kids will just have to pay in addition to the debt. As for being "for" the war, which war are we talking about? The Afganistan war, that we quickly abandoned to divert to Iraq?

I wore the Army uniform at the time, and remember wondering why the heck we were ramping up for Iraq when they had nothing to do with 9-11. Now we know that they had nothing to do with the Towers, and had no WMDs. We knew it then, also, we now know. I felt betrayed, as someone who wore the uniform and was willing to fight whoever, whenever the President asked, assuming I would be asked to lead my men and women under me into war only for a just cause.

I was a good soldier and did what I was ordered to, then resigned my commission and returned to civilian life and dog training.

[YardleyLabs]

None of the $5 trillion includes the war. That's supplemental spending that our kids will just have to pay in addition to the debt. As for being "for" the war, which war are we talking about? The Afganistan war, that we quickly abandoned to divert to Iraq?

I wore the Army uniform at the time, and remember wondering why the heck we were ramping up for Iraq when they had nothing to do with 9-11. Now we know that they had nothing to do with the Towers, and had no WMDs. We knew it then, also, we now know. I felt betrayed, as someone who wore the uniform and was willing to fight whoever, whenever the President asked, assuming I would be asked to lead my men and women under me into war only for a just cause.

I was a good soldier and did what I was ordered to, then resigned my commission and returned to civilian life and dog training.

Your statement on the debt is actually incorrect. The deficit is measured on a cash account basis -- the simple difference between tax revenues and expenditures. The debt is the accumulated net total of deficits and surpluses over the entire history of the country.

Even though the war costs were not budgeted, they were counted in the deficit and contributed to the growth in debt. However, only a small fraction of the full costs of the wars has been incurred. We have yet to replace equipment and supplies expended and will be paying military benefits related to the war for decades to come.

The primary factors contributing to the $5+ trillion increase in the national debt under Bush are the tax cuts, the wars, the simple failure to curb any other expenditures, and the $700 million in bailout funds spent in the last months of the administration. Making it worse was the fact that the economy left behind was arguably worse than the economy inherited - a situation not encountered since the Hoover administration. So far Obama has not done much to increase the deficit, but he also hasn't decreased it and his budget proposals do not anticipate significant absolute dollar decreases over the next decade.

While I am not disturbed by the current deficit, I believe continued deficits once the economy begins to recover will cause the economy to tank again. Given that the primary cause of the deficits were the Bush tax cuts, I fear that it will not be possible to balance the books without reversing most of those cuts, particularly since extending the cuts was never included in Bush's budget projections (Bush's budgets assumed the cuts would expire in 2010.).

Thank you for your service. You may have been following the orders of a bad President, but your service was on behalf of all of us and deserves recognition and respect.

[dnf777]

I stand corrected. The deficits never included the supplemental war spending bills, but the bottom line Debt does.

Hey, it's just a few trillion here, a few trillion there. Like I said in an earlier post, I dont know where to call political "home".

Republicans had 8 years of unfettered policy enacted, and it left us with $11 trillion in debt, created the largest gov't ever in history, created the most intrusive dept into private citizens lives.....doesn't sound like the Republican party I grew up with.

Politics has become self-serving avenue to wealth and power beyond comprehension. Beyond any doubt, the best investment opportunity is to give large money to a future president or VP. I wondered at the time why Halliburton gave Cheney $40 million retirement bonus after 7 years with the company. Does anyone know how much Halliburton and its subsidiaries have profited from the Iraq war in NON-competitive bids??? Their $40 million investment has paid well over 1000% returns in 8 years.

Thankyou Butch, your comments are greatly appreicated. One of the things we all fought for, was the right to freely express our opinions on such forums as this. This list would be shut down in China.