Fiscally suicidal GOP just can't handle the truth

posted by Bill Arnett @ 12:12 PM Permalink

Of all the great lies about political parties the greatest and most demonstrably untrue one is that the GOP is the party of fiscal responsibility. No one can look at our $9 trillion deficit, the expenditure of billions and billions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan, borrowing those dollars from China and other countries that may one day turn against us, the rapidly declining value of the dollar, the subprime mortgage fiasco, and truthfully state that the GOP is a good steward of our economy.

Now that some members of the Democratic party have calculated the "hidden" costs of the bush Oil Wars, Republicans are going nuts that their abject failure has been documented in a report that was released to the public.

From Raw Story comes the sad truth of the GOPs disgraceful handling of the American economy and estimates of the true cost of the bush Oil War in this story titled "Republicans call for withdrawal of 'hidden cost of wars' report":

[…]Senior Republicans on Congress' Joint Economic Committee, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KN) and Rep. James Saxon (R-NJ) are calling on Democrats to retract a staff report alleging the hidden costs of the Iraq war could total more than $1.5 trillion.

In a joint statement issued to the Washington Post, the committee's Republicans called the report "another thinly veiled exercise in political hyperbole masquerading as academic research."[…]

The Democratic analysis claimed that President Bush's six-year invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq would end up costing Americans about $1.5 trillion, or nearly twice as much as the White House has actually spent to fight its wars, because of unseen costs like inflation, rising oil prices and expensive care for wounded veterans.

The estimate was revealed in a Democratic staff report from Congress's Joint Economic Committee. The staff report, titled "The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War," estimated that the Iraq and Afghan wars have cost the average family more than $20,000.

The White House apparently vastly underestimated the war's costs, the authors assert. It requested $804 billion -- just more than half the total costs -- to keep up its wars and occupations through 2008.

"The report argues that war funding is diverting billions of dollars away from "productive investment" by American businesses in the United States. It also says that the conflicts are pulling reservists and National Guardsmen away from their jobs, resulting in economic disruptions for U.S. employers that the report estimates at $1 billion to $2 billion," the Post's Josh White wrote Tuesday.

Israel Klein, a spokesman for the committee's majority, replied in the Post.

"Instead of dealing with the substance of this report, the White House is once again trying to deflect attention away from the blistering costs of this war in Iraq," he said.

I don't think any reasonable person could look at these estimates and disagree that the GOP is directly responsible for the deplorable economic state in which we now find America.

This report, among others that have projected even higher costs, approximately $2.4 trillion, should end forever the lie that Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility, and expose bush's meager and pathetic attempts to reclaim that mantle to be as completely dishonest as he is.

Plenty of money for horrid illegal wars of aggression, for continuing the genocide and displacement of millions of Iraqis, for planning yet another war of aggression against Iran, and for monetary policies that are as bankrupt as Republicans are amoral and immoral liars.

I guess I would probably be upset to have such perfidy documented and released to the public as well. And who knows, while the GOP squeals like a stuck pig these numbers may finally seep into the minds of voters and showcase why the Republican party is becoming ever more irrelevant and just too damned expensive to allow them control of America's budget or access to the U.S. Treasury ever again.

Labels: Bush, democratic party, Economy, GOP, hypocrisy, liars, war funding