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The Hill is reporting that the cost of our latest war military action in Libya could effectively wipe out all the deficit reduction House Republicans are trying to squeeze of out of cuts to domestic programs.
U.S. military operations in Libya could wipe out a significant chunk of the budget cuts won by congressional Republicans in recent weeks, defense analysts say.
GOP leaders have trumpeted enacted spending reductions that amount to more than $285 million per day since the beginning of March.
But defense analysts say the Pentagon could be burning through more than $100 million per day in Libya, putting those budget savings at risk.
If we are actually so “broke”–as the deficit hawks like to claim–that we can no longer afford to give heating assistance to poor Americans in the winter or fund immunizations, there would be no way we could afford another conflict that isn’t vital to American security. Nor would we be able to afford the highly unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which cost almost three times as much as all the cuts sought by House Republicans.
Yet there has been no massive uproar from many of the self-styled Republican and Democratic deficit hawks about ending either conflict where we are literally blowing up millions of dollars a day in some of the most wasteful spending imaginable. As if by magic all concerns about the deficit disappear when money is needed for more war. Just like all the scary deficit rhetoric vanishes when it comes time for more tax cuts.
Libya is just another recent reminder that almost no one in Washington actually cares about the deficit. The deficit is only used as an excuse to justify forcing regular Americans to sacrifice.
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Does the $100mil/day include the crashed F-15 or is that in the “supplemental.”
“Deficits, schmeficits, Reagan proved that they don’t matter”…Dick (the undead) Cheney.
Nice one Ronnie, er, Barry. When are you going to reclassify ketchup as a vegetable?
It’s getting harder each day to figure out which is which.
AMEN
The worse one is O.
“Libya is just another recent reminder that almost no one in Washington actually cares about the deficit. ”
Another way of saying it?
Libya is a concrete reminder that almost no one in Washington Dem or Rep actually cares about middle class America.
What we Americans must do is realize we are Egypt,Libya, etc.
400 USA families now have more wealth than 150 million USA families Fact.
the USA is a banana republic people
Our President, some Dems, all Reps, want to cut Social Security, Education, Medicare, while F-15, Tomahawk cruise missile spending goes thru the roof.
“we still give tax breaks to Oil Companies that make record profits and we raise the taxes on the poor”
Is Libya a threat to USA security?
Obama is now using the USA military likes it is the Red Cross, the Peace Corp, etc.
Obama is the same guy that pass a GOP health care bill, and acted like JFK, TED Kennedy, LBJ, FDR, would have love it.
Listen up, trollsky. Progressives who don’t support the President still do not disrespect him with the derogatory reference to the name he once used. Otherwise you would also disrespect President Reagan by referring to him by the term Raygun.
As for the cuts in heating … we’ll that’s been coming out of the Republican House. Although I will concede that the President could veto the continuing resolutions. Or can he? I don’t actually know.
Don’t count on it. This is Obama’s indirect war on Social Security…afterall, we couldn’t cut the Pentagon budget now, so we’ve got to look elsewhere – and if you don’t support Obama’s humanitarians wars, you’re an evil person who is causing people to suffer and die!
Then did he raise on high the Holy Hand Grenade of MIC, saying, “Bless this, Obama, that with it thou mayst blow thine enemies to tiny bits, in thy mercy.” Now did Obama say, “First thou pullest the Holy Pin. Then thou must count to three. Three shall be the number of the counting and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither shalt thou count two, excepting that thou then proceedeth to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the number of the counting, be reached, then lobbest thou the Holy Hand Grenade in the direction of thine foe, who, being naughty in my sight, shall snuff it.”
Everyone knows that unnecessary wars pay for themselves, just like tax cuts. You just have to take the long view.
*gestures vaguely*
M’eh. They’ll just insist on abolishing the Department of Education and Health and Human Services and raising the retirement age to 117.
I not only don’t support obama, I have no respect for him – none whatsoever.
Ronnie had a backbone.
David Sirota – “Selective Deficit Disorder”
Hysterical Selective Deficit Blindness.
Colbert/Stewart for 2012 Presidency
That was part of Obama’s opening proposal, it is all his.
Obama’s budget would cut heat subsidies for poor.
http://money.cnn.com/2011/02/11/news/economy/obama_heating_cuts/index.htm
With all due respect to David Sirota, Hysterical Selective Deficit Disorder.
Eliminating LIHEAP was an Obama proposal. Maybe you should educate yourself before coming here and calling people names.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/whitehouse/exclusive-obama-to-cut-energy-assistance-for-the-poor-20110209
Gee I believe Barry’s budget is the one that halves LIHEAP
He gonna veto his own damn proposal?
oops, should have refreshed.
agreed. at least St Ronnie the Alzheimered was honest about dismantling the New Deal.
Apparently, no one in Congress is getting a piece of that LIHEAP money. Or at least not an “MIC project in your district” piece.
Follow the graft, er, money.
It appears I owe an apology to all the anti-intervention posters from last night’s long debate about the right or wrong of intervening there.
With every passing hour it’s becoming more evident that Obama’s motivation was simply to avert the onus of having a public bloodbath by Ghadafy take place on HIS watch. He is now demonstrating that he is THE great bipartisan poohbah and has found the nirvana-like “middle ground” in Libya…and is working hard for yet another stalemate-to-be-decided-later.
I had thought that, in the current political climate of change in the middle east, he would understand the moral value of helping a populist movement in a Muslim country, come to power, or, at the least that he would understand that if he, with the help of France and England, etc. lent our power to running Ghadafy out of Libya, and implementing an honest-to-god mission accomplished regime change, that it would give some spark to his dwindling chances for a second term.
Silly me. Sorry, Kris.
“…St. Ronnie the Alzheimered…” :o)
“Excuse me; what country are we in?…and can I have another jellybean?”
You really need to get out here more often. Calling Mr. Hopey Changey by the name he used throughout college is actually very mild for me.
Now get thee back to Daily Kos… most folks here hold Obama in absolute contempt.
How unpatriotic of you to question the cost of war!!!1eleven!11!
Why do you hate our troops, or our Tomahawk missiles????!!
LOL
“try the reds, they taste like cherries”
A meeting in the Oval Office:
Biden: You know, Mr. President, this Libya thing’s getting pretty expensive.
Obama: What do you mean, Joe?
Biden: Well I don’t know if anyone’s told you this, but we’re using a lot of missiles trying blow Quadaffi back to the stone age.
Obama: I thought he lived in a tent…
Biden: The thing is, those tomahawks are awfully expensive, I think at least a million apiece, and so far we’ve used hundreds of them. So, what with the deficit and everything… I was worried that we may take a hit in the press.
Obama: Don’t worry old buddy, I know what you mean, we’ve gotta look fiscally responsible. Tell you what, we can shut down the EPA. The Koch brothers will like it, and it’ll really piss off those smelly hippies!
Biden: Sounds like a win/win/win to me!
I was shocked to hear that each of those tomahawk misiles costs $600,000 why don’t they just give that money to struggling families?!
Damn right.
And it shows that no one in Congress actually wants to pay for our wars.
But we have to cut spending elsewhere so we don’t have inflation. Right?
Hey tanbark: thanks for your input today. I’m willing to *debate* anyone until the cows come home on issues for which I have a strong passion, and I’m also very willing to stand corrected.
I stand by what I was posting yesterday, which is that: this conflict in Libya is nothing more or less than a way for the elites and/or the corporations to make money. The “moral value of helping a populist movement” is far far far below the radar of Obama/the Elites that it’s not worth consideration.
It’s my opinion – which I am pulling from my left butt cheek & can in no way prove – that Oilbummer is doing this to “pay back” BP for the losses incurred during the BP preventable oil volcano disaster in the Gulf of Mex this past summer. Gaining control of the Libyan oil reserves would satisify BP, I’m sure, and the COST of this bomb dropping is passed onto YOU & ME, the US Taxpayer, in order to *defray* BP’s oil volcano disaster “clean up” expenses.
Anyone think I’m waaay off base on my supposition??
Eh? I actually disagree somewhat the theme that no one in Dee Cee “cares about the deficit.” I think the powerful Elites, which includes the bought off millionaires & billionaires in Congress, the White House, the Cabinet & the US Supreme Court care very very deeply about the deficit… bc it’s a *great* way to utilize it as an excuse to get rid of what they love to call “entitlement” programs like Soc Sec, Medicare, Public Education, InfraStructure improvements, etc etc.
Oh they care… they care a LOT… just not in the same way that you and I do.
As long as we are in WAG-world, your WAG has the same validity as anyone else’s. There are two things we absolutely do not know despite our pretenses: Obama’s motives and what is going to happen in the future.
Likely it’s a joint venture between TotalFinaElf, BP, and Royal Dutch Shell wired in by Cameron, Sarkozy, and Berlusconi. All Obama would have to do in that situation is say, “We support our allies.” Ain’t it fun how WAGs work?
Elites love the deficit and the debt. Interest on the national debt is one of the best direct ways of redistributing income from the working middle class to the global elite rich.
Peterson’s gambit on Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit and everything to do with Black Rock Securities managing trillions of other people’s money. The Republican gambit is to screw the job creation so they can defeat Obama on the jobs issue.
The rich love the debt and the tax cut — the best of both worlds.
Arms for hostages-pretty flimsy backbone. Actors, even bad ones, play their parts.
Obama/Reagan-It’s like saying arsenic’s better than strychnine.
It’s useful-like hysteria about national security.
You know you live in a banana republic when your country can pay for war and build war machines, but can’t build bridges, repair its aging infrastructure, feed and cloth its poor, or educate its children.
this time they are the smart ones and we’re the ones being stupid…. if only no one outside of washington actually cared about the fed gov deficit either, we’d be in way better shape to protect social security.
I was going to make fun of the backbone comment too but ya beat me there. Negotiation with terrorists, then becoming shocked when they took more hostages? “Role of a lifetime” is the best way to sum it up, he didn’t actually do the job he was elected for, unless you count not pushing the football buttons.