Today the much-talked about new book by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and co-author, Harvard professor, Linda Bilmes, is hitting the book stores. It’s called The Three Trillion Dollar War and it explains how the Iraq war, a war that was originally billed as a conflict that would all but “pay for itself,” has already has cost the U.S. Treasury $845 billion out of pocket but, according to Stiglitz, will cost at minimum three trillion dollars in real costs, says Reuters in its article on the Stiglitz book.
What we could have bought with that money.
Contrast those numbers with the last segment on Sunday’s 60 Minutes broadcast, a story about what happened when an non-profit medical relief organization brought its huge, portable medical clinic to Knoxville, Tennessee, for a weekend, and offered free medical check-ups, mammograms, dental and eye care to anybody who showed up.
In the past, the organization, called Remote Area Medical, or RAM, used to airlift medical relief to isolated regions of the Amazon. Now RAM is doing 60 percent of its work in rural America because, says the organization’s founder, the need here is just so great.
In the weekend that 60 Minutes covered, RAM treated 920 visibly stressed and desperate people who waited for hours in 27 degree weather in the hope of getting in, some driving over 200 miles to seek care. Most were working poor, people who had done what America had asked of them yet were unable to afford basic medical care for themselves and their families. Many who came had insurance, but couldn’t pay the deductible their insurance required. When the weekend was over, and the RAM docs finished speeding as many patients as humanly possible through medical, dental and ophthalmological treatments, at least 400 additional people were turned away.
If you watch the 60 Minutes video, as I suggest you do (it’s a painful but, in its own way, heroic story), or if you watch the night’s first segment on the Ohio primary where Ohioans talk about the pain of lost jobs due to plant shutdowns and a sinking economy, just remember….
…three trillion bucks.
And for what?
If we added up all the Democrat’s wars on this and that and the other, they would far outstrip the cost of what is spent in Iraq, yet those wars aren’t successful and, yet, keep demanding more money.
What you’re playing on is that the money in Iraq is wasted. Well, we’ve kept the terrorists busy on their turf rather than ours, and the people of Iraq are free of tyranny. Isn’t saving lives a good investment? At least there will be an end to that challenge, whereas wars on social problems started by the Democrats only grow in costs and enlarge in causes.
Quit worrying about what others spend and start worrying about the effectiveness of the money spent on programs you like. There’s a lot more waste there than from our military. And, quit assuming that money not spent one place is going to end up in your hands to put somewhere else.
Finally, quit falling for every sob story from 60 Minutes.
(Sorry that I posted the comment, reg, before you had to do one for me, but I’m sure it would have been just as good.)
If we added up all the Democrat’s wars on this and that and the other, they would far outstrip the cost of what is spent in Iraq, yet those wars aren’t successful and, yet, keep demanding more money.
If we had a dollar for every time Woody offered up some wild claim without a shred of proof to back it up, we would have a budget surplus, free health care and free hosuing for every American.
How’s that war on poverty coming that Johnson started back in the 1960’s? You don’t know that it has cost into the trillions of dollars? I’ve seen your so-called claims of its success before, but consider how much as been spent and Celeste still has to write about people in poverty. Why, we could have turned the poor into millionairs just by writing them checks rather than starting programs for bureaucrats.
The bottom line is that “compassionate people,” who don’t know beans about budgets and cost/benefits realtionships, are still claiming that money will change the sorry lives of people. I’m compassionate, too, which is why I don’t offer false promises based upon how much can be spent. Getting out of poverty is going to take changes in families and cultures.
You don’t know that it has cost into the trillions of dollars?
Proof?
but consider how much as been spent and Celeste still has to write about people in poverty
Consider how much has been spent on cancer research and heart disease research and people are still dying of those diseases. Consider how much has been spent on trying to achieve peace in the Middle East and we are no closer than we were before.
Your point?
“wars on social problems started by the Democrats only grow in costs and enlarge in causes”
You mean like the Republican War on Drugs? How’s that one going? Even the recently deceased W.F. Buckley got smart and recognized its utter ridiculousness. Unfortunately, he was one of the last of a dying breed: honest conservatives.
Consider how much has been spent on law enforcement and prisons, yet we haven’t ended crime. Consider how much more the U.S. spends on health care per capita than any other country, yet our health and mortality are no better and, by some measures, worse. That last one in particular doesn’t seme to bother Woody at all, because the structural reform to achieve any other outcome is against his “principles” – a simple universal payer system of basic insurance.
The shorter Woody: What I believe in spending inordinate sums of money on are the good “big government” programs and/or the “rational” workings of markets.
Since the beginning of efforts dubbed “The War on Poverty,” poverty rates have declined significantly – particularly among children and the elderly, the most vulnerable among us – but Woody just recycles rhetoric and rewrites exactly the same one-dimendsional opinion on every topic.
As for what has been achieved in the Middle East with this expenditure, consider the hero’s welcome Ahmadinijad got in Iraq yesterday from our “clients.” Mission accomplished to a startling degree by the guys dubbed our “most dangerous enemies” in Teheran and all on Woody’s dime. Heckuva job, Bushies !!!!
If we had a dollar for every time Woody offered up some wild claim without a shred of proof to back it up, we would have a budget surplus, free health care and free hosuing for every American.
I spit-up my drink from laughing so hard, as I read Randy’s comment, my loud laughter also drew a crowd.
The “War on Drugs” has provided many jobs for cops, attorneys, judges and all the other drug soldiers. My favorite event is when the drug cops bust a large drug shipment and pat each other on the back. I wonder if any crack-heads have ever stopped using drugs because of the latest large drug bust.
A little lesson for Woody our adilpated economist: Stieglitz uses adjusted figures and measures in constant 2002 dollars. By that measure only WWII cost more and we paid most of that debt off in the next twenty years. Marginal rates went up to 91%. Bush cut tax rates – a first for any war fought anywhere as far as Paul Krugman could determine. The result? Gas headed to 4 bucks a gallon, food prices nearly doubling and the housing bubble. Last month the Wholesale Price Index was 7.1% and that’s core inflation!
Don’t worry about Ohio and Knoxville. The middle segment on “60 Minutes” demonstrated the latest in crowd control devices. Look for it soon at your local police and Homeland Security outlets!
Is “BlackWater” still hiring? I hear they have excellent health benefits – 401k too.
🙂
The result? Gas headed to 4 bucks a gallon, food prices nearly doubling and the housing bubble. Last month the Wholesale Price Index was 7.1% and that’s core inflation!
Also, the record weakness of the dollar against everything but the South African rand and the South Korean won, is one of the factors driving the high gas prices.
One wonders how long it will take to undo the damage the Bush administration has done to this country.
It’s amazing the level of stupidity that you guys took this discussion. Blaming law enforcement for too many arrests. Comparing medical research to welfare payments. Blaming gas prices on tax cuts. Saying that everything is peachy with the war on poverty, when poverty and crime keep reaching record levels–unless you think Celeste is lying. But, what can you expect from people who think that The New York Times is not liberal.
Your solutions are like bad medical care–put emphasis on cures rather than prevention. Your ideas are like informing someone that smoking, lack of exercise, and certain diets can prevent heart disease, but telling them after they have already had a heart attack!
Rather than stopping crime and poverty at the root level, which encompasses morality and common sense and neither of which is within your grasp, you want to help people after they are in trouble.
Money poured onto your bad solutions is money wasted. More transfers of military dollars to social programs accomplishes as much as if we attacked Switzerland. You keep wasting the money you get and come back wanting more. You’re like a bunch of bored housewives at the mall.
It’s amazing the level of stupidity that you guys took this discussion. Blaming law enforcement for too many arrests.
It’s amazing how when people ask you to back up your claims you call us stupid. Probably because that’s all you’ve got.
Randy, I’ve backed up many claims with you. No matter what is presented, you reject anything or any source contrary to what you want to believe. It’s your way of saying. “I can’t debate the issue, so I’ll just call you a liar and demand unreasonalbe proof.”
Go ahead. Tell me that crime and poverty are less because of the trillions of dollars spent on it. Unless you do, then let’s assume that it’s worse.
The stupidity, as I showed, is readily apparent. If you think that law enforcement is to blame for more crime because they have arrested more people, then that is stupid and I don’t know how else to categorize it.
Randy’s right. Nothing but a lot of hot air from Woody, zero relevant responses, a lot of dancing around. You know, the typical dishonest Republican.
You “back it up” with comments from opinion commenters like Neal Boortz. That’s not proof, that’s just more hot air.
It’s your way of saying. “I can’t debate the issue, so I’ll just call you a liar and demand unreasonalbe proof.â€Â
You’re projecting again.
Just for the record, I acknowledged that I was wrong here.
I’m sorry if I have toommuch respect for the truth to let nonsense slide.
I’m not a Republican in today’s sense, Joseph, but, from your name calling, it’s clear that you are a Democrat.
You guys should do what I do – ignore anything that starts with the name of “WOODY” on it. Anything that comes out that guy’s mouth is a bunch of retarded elephant (strong and dignified) Shit.