Last week’s article on the Iraq war and inflation is relevant for today’s discussion. Inflation is coexistant with war more often than not, and it holds true today in the current American economy. Rampant inflation (Despite what the Bush administration is saying) will go side by side with the Iraqi war to make sure it is easy to pay for. We know that if taxes had to be raised, I would make a guess that less than 15% of the population would support the war, maybe 5-10%. But that isn’t the case when you have a national bank such as the Federal Reserve able to spew money out of its nose whenever it feels like it.
This leads me to the current situation of Bush seeking 250 billion dollars for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the military’s new record budget.
We can all sit and argue about the war, whether it was right to invade or whether it was not, but that is all irrelevant now, we’re there. The question remains though, “Is what we’re doing constitutional”? The answer appears to be no. First and foremost, the Constitution requires that for the country to be at war, the Congress must declare war, that hasn’t happened. On this basis alone we should pull out of Iraq unless the Congress wants to make an official declaration, the problem is both Democrats and Republicans like the idea that the President can invade any country at will. The Democrats do not oppose this, they simply yak a lot for political purposes, no real changes will be made. If that isn’t obvious enough, just look at all their resolutions that are meaningless and futile, they have no will to change the war policy.
The 100 billion that Bush is seeking for this year is an amount of money beyond belief. Most on the right would agree it must be spent, most on the left believe it should be spent on social and domestic problems. The thing is, wouldn’t you, the taxpayer, like to have your share of the 100 billion dollars? It may not be much but I’d like it back. Another problem with the 100 billion dollars is that once again, it is through emergency spending bills:
Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the administration has funded the war primarily through emergency spending bills. Many lawmakers want that practice stopped and have demanded that Bush incorporate the war requests into the regular budget for the sake of transparency, with some referring to the emergency bills as a “shadow” budget.
Of course it’s a shadow budget, what else would it be? The Congress wants to approve it, Bush wants to get it, they’re both happy but we the people are screwed over once again. The same goes for the absurd military budget. I am not a pacifist by any means, and I believe a strong national defense system should be in place, but 622 billion dollars? Take off 300 billion, plus take out the 250 total for the Iraqi war, and that’s 550 billion dollars that you and I could place back in our pockets. The government doesn’t see it like that, though, the question there is “social spending or foreign spending”, but both are currently unconstitutional so the answer is neither.
The fault here lies within the people of the United States. Rather than demanding a government that doesn’t take money, we just quibble over what it should be spent on with little worry about taxes. The “tax cuts” of the Bush administration were paltry and while good, no where near good enough.
Americans need to get out of the socialist Keynesian model of economics which we have seen has failed time after time again, and get back to a classic liberal state of capitalism where war is fought only in national defense, inflation doesn’t happen because of the government, and everyone is free.
Filed under: Politics
