First of all your math sucks. $110b of a $3000b budget is not "less than 1%". In addition, $110b is the off-budget cost for the war and doesn't include the already budgeted military expenses that are part of the $515b defense budget (which has an estimated $100b-$200b increase due to the costs of a protracted war). That makes the Iraq war around 10% of the budget for '08. That is NOT a small amount.Embar Angylwrath wrote:Dd.. where are you getting that "few trillion dollars" amount? My understanding is the operating costs of the war are projected at $110 billion in 2008 as requested by Bush. The annual budget is close to three trillion dollars, which makes the Iraq war cost less than 1% of the annual budget.
The trillions of dollars figure I see is usually the result of economists projecting the TOTAL cost of the war, not the annual. And they include stuff like loss of productivity of Iraq war veterens, hypothetical losses from trade loss related to the reputation of the US, increased healthcare costs of US veterans, loss of productivity if the money had been spent in other programs, fuel price increases attributed (I use that term loosely here) to the Iraq war, etc., etc. In short, the "trillion" dollar figure is a hypothetical number, and it isn't related to the DIRECT costs of the war in Iraq.
Can you provide a non-partisan link that shows the actual annual spending for the war in Iraq?
Note that both the CBO and CRS predict the Iraq war to run well over a trillion dollars if the current course is pursued. Neither are partisan institutions. The current direct spending on Iraq alone is between $650b and $750b so claiming "a few trillion" in economic costs to the US is hardly a stretch. I don't know why you're harping on the "direct" costs - who gives a shit? We're talking about the economy here and you tossed in the comparison to GDP so you need to factor in all the chain effects if you want to deal in that sort of terms, or just admit you threw in GDP as a red herring to make the cost sound small.
If you want to talk direct costs then you're looking at around 10% of the annual federal budget.
If you want to talk economic costs then it's much more fluid but easily in the trillions already just from the increased cost of oil alone, not to mention the absolute destruction of the US's foreign image and significantly diminished ability to influence other nation's economic and military policies.
Dd
