A top US budget analyst has projected $855 billion in deficits for the next decade. This figure does not take into account the cost of the Afghan and Iraqi wars for which the President has requested another $80 billion or his Social Security plan.
The request follows $25m requested last summer and sends the cost of current military actions past the $300 billion mark.
About three quarters of the $80bn will be destined to the Army along with the building of a $1.5bn U.S. embassy in Baghdad.
for a trillion? I swear, the government never runs out of money and they are always spending and approving the spending of huge dollar amounts such as in this article. Debt just doesn't seem to matter. It's a big issue, but I haven't seen it or at least I haven't been affected by it. The national debt at least... I'm not against Bush on this because any other President would be asking for money for something, I just don't understand how the government can spend continue to spend so much while already in such a large debt.
look, if it wasn't money being spent this way, it would be spent from some other sub-committee, on some other pet project.. doesn't matter if it's the Dems or GOP, they're both wasteful entities.. the gov't needs to be held accountable for the money it spends, and more importantly needs to justify to the US citizens why certain committees and departments exist.. explain why departments can't be combined, explain why congressmen only work about 500 hrs a year...
If I were American (and I know a good few of you are thinking thank God you are not :-) I'd be pissed off at the fact that all the money "made" from these wars i.e. gas pipelines and oil is going to go straight to Corporations not the American economy ( and don’t fall into the trap of thinking the two are the same) ...what will come out of the American economy is the cost of rebuilding a financial paradise for large Corporations from the dust left behind .
Weak cries about corruption aside, if a company like Halliburton goes into someplace like Iraq, wouldn't you expect them to make money? Corporations are not in the business of losing money after all, unless you want to count Enron. The money, or at least a portion of it, does make it's way into the economy through the salaries that the workers are paid, through the workers who build the machinery that is used, etc. Yes, the Corp. is making money, and yes, it's not paying enough taxes on it, but that's to be blamed on the Gov't. not the Corp. Again, it comes down to the Gov't needing to be responsible to the People for what it does. Pres wants to pass a tax bill that helps big Corps, let the People know and decide. The US could get rid of 1/2 the Gov't workers in Washington DC and get rid of 1/2 the various departments created to monitor the blinker-fluid levels in taxi-cabs and that would be a tremendous savings right there.
Call me naive, but how can we spend $1.5 billion on an embassy building? I understand the security aspect of it...but that figure seems extreme. And its not like this embassy is going to have to provide service to thousands of American tourists...
the compound will be completely enclosed by an electromagnetic shield that incinerates the molten copper from RPGs. It'll work less than 1% of the time and cost rediculous amounts of money but hey... it's just $1.5bn.
Who is he slaving your grandchildren to? Doesn't the debt from desert storm still need to be paid off? I want to see the "War on National Debt" Here is one Mr Bush, in your next term, pay for the first. If Bush was a home renter and USA was the apartment he was renting, would he get his deposit back when he left? Even to see the debt roll back instead of forward would be enough. I do see needing 1.5bn on a embassy/bunker in Afghanistan in walking distance for most suicide bombers. I suggest a few million more for aspestos flags cause you just might need them. They are building a large target, it will have problems just in construction forget the grand opening. In the global ecconomy being self sustained is always a plus, the states would not fuction tomorrow if the oil and other resources were cut off. Gas would cost too much for people to go to work. Remeber the '70s gas crisis? Reform should have started that day, cooking oil works in unmoddified diesel engines once the colesterol is filtered out. If every resturant were taxed away their used oil instead of having to pay a company to fill a land fill with it then we would have a fuel reserve owned by the people. This amount of reserve would affect the current gas price because of how much fuel we have available. It's effective fuel and has always been there. We don't need fossil fuel at all. Even hotrods are burning alcohol cause of the higher octanes. Other than it is potentially dangerous economically to switch fuels quickly (people will lose jobs before other jobs are available to replace them) America hasn't gotten around to losing it's oil leash. Atleast no Bushes next term, I hope for the reincarnation of Martin Luther King Jr or Ghandi next president. Ever wonder if we will get Arnold "The Presinator" Shwartzenegger nominated if that no foreign born law gets reformed? I think Bruce Lee could qualify (not that he would be good or bad, just the circumstances of his birth) Although perhaps Georges brother Jeb might run? Or his Uncles?
...just by getting re-elected, Bush proved to the Iraqi citizens that voting does not help - by and large, they hate his guts, they know we voted, and now that he is back in office, it further proved to them that democracy has failed, and it will not help them. But if he hadn't gotten re-elected, he wouldn't be around to shove voting down their throats, and... ah, you see where I am going with this.
@fred - actually, it showed that democracy does work, the majority voted for Bush, therefore he won. Let's not confuse the issue here, Iraq's and the world's opinions of Bush don't count for squat in the US elections. They are not US citizens, etc. For better or for worse, the majority of voters voted for Bush - that is Democracy. In 2000, the majority did NOT vote for him and he won. THAT should be held as an example of how Democracy has failed, not the 2004 elections
But I was partying with Bruce Lee last night, he bought Elvis with him. It was a blast.
Of course I know he's dead. I was refering to Bruce Lee because he was born in the USA while his parents were over so he never needed a green card, he was a US citizen. Once he was 35 he could have run for president. He lived his whole life in China before comming to the USA again to start his acting career.
It wasn't just the voting that I think failed, but the fact that a man could not really get elected, get in office anyway, do one of thoe worst jobs in recent history as president and THEN get re-elected. That is failure of democracy, when people do not judge the person they are voting for, but only vote for him or her because of party allegience. And for the US to re-elect someone who has not done a single good thing in four years (try naming one) and is viewed accross the globe as a threat to freedom, that is showing the Iraqi people that democracy is not the golden nugget the Bush administration makes it out to be.
you're talking with your heart about democracy.. I'm not going to disagree with you on your questioning of the ethics or morality of re-electing Bush, but the bottom line is, he was voted in by a majority. It doesn't matter if it was voting by party line or not, it's a majority. That's what a democracy is based on. Even idiots get a vote. You can't say that democracy doesn't work because you're upset that he got voted back in based on what you see as his (dis)qualifications. A majority of the voters did not see it the way you did, as a result Bush was re-elected. Every person of voting age was given a chance to make their decision (ignoring claims to the contrary for the moment) and they did. That's democracy, whether or not you like the end result.
Simply... idiots get the vote in a democracy and when you gather a large amount if idiots, you get someone like Bush reelected. All it is showing is that when someone who is as stupid as this man is considered a good leader, he is likely leading many people as stupid as him. Logical?
The USA and the average American citizen is a laughing stock to most of the world at the moment - the only way out of it would be for the American to proclaim that he didnt vote for Bush and can't believe he came in again. THEN that person would gain the highest sympathy for having to live in the USA with those people.
LOL! P.S If you don't love the USA, leave is going to be the answer someone is going to give.. my answer would be... if all the people that hated the current administration left, the average IQ of the population would like fall 20 points and leave it with a bright rosey future :)
