Wed
Aug 29 2007
12:15 pm
Perspective
By: Sven

According to my back-of-the-envelope calculations, President Numbnuts' war supplemental is equivalent to just under 25% of all personal income tax collected by the federal government annually.

$3.85 billion a week.* It's more than that, of course, because it won't be drawn out of the national checking account; it'll be rung up on the national credit card.

I might be able to swallow the largest single chunk of my tax dollars being blown on whiskey and sexy in one big eff-it-all Fall of the Republic bender. But no, the Magnificent Leader has decided to invest it in burning flesh, snake oil and training thousands in how to better kill my countrymen.

Matt Taibbi sums it up perfectly:

What the Bush administration has created in Iraq is a sort of paradise of perverted capitalism, where revenues are forcibly extracted from the customer by the state, and obscene profits are handed out not by the market but by an unaccountable government bureauc­racy.

This is the triumphant culmination of two centuries of flawed white-people thinking, a preposterous mix of authoritarian socialism and laissez-faire profit­eering, with all the worst aspects of both ideologies rolled up into one pointless, supremely idiotic military adventure -- American men and women dying by the thousands, so that Karl Marx and Adam Smith can blow each other in a Middle Eastern glory hole.

* Consider this: the Hoover Dam cost $2.4 billion to build (in 2006 dollars).

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Factchecker's picture

So the $200 million per day

Submitted by Factchecker on Wed, 2007/08/29 - 12:38pm.

So the $200 million per day is now up to $550 million per day. Plus interest and it's off the books so people don't see it in the deficit.

Well, "IT'S YOUR MONEY!" as Bush was fond to say prior to 9/11. Oh, and his "ownership society." How's that working out--home sales, savings rates and all?

I'm sure we're getting what we're paying for, or else we wouldn't be there. Right?

Sven's picture

Here are more astonishing

Submitted by Sven on Wed, 2007/08/29 - 1:54pm.

Here are more astonishing numbers: 91 freaking percent of Republicans (along with 1/3 of Dems) would bet on Iraq turning out okie dokey, and 89% of Goopers think the surge is working.

I need to get my hands on the GOP's direct-mail list. These people will buy anything.

Sven's picture

Oops. They're on to me: It

Submitted by Sven on Wed, 2007/08/29 - 6:04pm.

Oops. They're on to me:

It seems that those who routinely feed from the various toilets along the left wing information sewer are currently being instructed how to feel about said upcoming [Petraeus] report. (Not think, mind you, but feel. Feel might not be exactly the right word either, but it's closer to it than thinking, which is an altogether different process.) It's a pretty slick trick - once again begging the question "are the people who write this stuff ignorant, or do they just think their readers are?"

Gee, I wonder how he feels?

Factchecker's picture

"are the people who write

Submitted by Factchecker on Wed, 2007/08/29 - 7:32pm.

"are the people who write this stuff ignorant, or do they just think their readers are?"

Hey, that's one of our lines!

kurtdavistn's picture

I calculated out that the

Submitted by kurtdavistn on Wed, 2007/08/29 - 9:57pm.

I calculated out that the Iraq war will cost our children in these stark terms- a permanent 15% income tax hike. For their entire lives.

Think about that.

Debt on one trillion = $60B/year
about 100 million Americans under 18, so debt service is $600/year
Average taxpayer pays $4K, so an additional $600/year is a 15% increase, no?

And that's if we get out in the next 2-3 years. It could be more if we elect Guiliani or another "stay the course" Republikan.

(link...)

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