WHO WILL PAY FOR BUSH'S WAR? The above Bush deficit of $304 billion, the largest in history as well as the most precipitous, (see above) is pre-budget. With the new Bush budget in place, our deficit is $5.4 trillion over ten years. (Bush is back-loading the deficit so the entire economic penality of what he is doing will not be readily apparent until after he is out of office.) Paul Krugman suggests that we count on that post-budget deficit to increase by around $140 billion evey six months, and that's based upon past behavior and does not count the Bush war against Iraq: "Independent analysts, who take into account the stuff the administration pretends doesn't exist — the war, the alternative minimum tax, and so on — think we're looking at deficits of 3 or 4 percent of G.D.P., maybe more, for the next decade. And then it will get much worse." We know that a deficit such as that which is predicted could move our country into a depression in ten or so years. But as Bush said as he was leaving Texas for D.C. when told that the state was moving into deficit spending due to his ill-advised tax cuts, "That's not my problem." To see how bad it could get, let's look at a NYT estimate of the cost of a Bush war on Iraq.
Military Deployment = $79 billion
Military Occupation = $105 billion (First 5 years only.)
Humanitarian Aid = $10 billion
Governance = $12 billion
Reconsrtuction/Recovery = $105 billion
Debt/Claims/Reparation = $361 billion
Aid To Allies = $10 billion (Does not include quid pro quo deals)
TOTAL: $682 billion
The Bush budget assumes a deficit of $5.4 trillion by the end of ten years, but the addition of a Bush Iraq war deficit of .7 trillion will push it up to $6.1 trillion, and assuming Bush will continue his ill-advised economic plans with a GOP Congress in place, the deficit by the end of his present term in office will reach $6.7 trillion. Bush plans to plunder the taxpayers' money coming in to support Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security to bring down the deficit to $3.2 trillion, but pretty much eliminating the three programs by so doing, which is his ultimate goal, thereby destroying the key economic safety nets nearly all of the poor and most of the middle class have. By then, the government will have to delete 30% of its social programs or put heavy taxation in place to avoid doing so. Given the huge deficit we will still have at that point, "the temptation to print money to pay our debts will become almost irresistible." That being the case, inflation will set in, jobs will be lost, and wages will remain fixed as prices go up. By then, of course, ex-President Bush will be saying, "That's not my problem." It will be ours. --Politex, 02.15.03
