Enough is Enough

Did you know that recent US government budget figures indicate that this administration has spent enough money in the prosecution of the Iraq war to give every Iraq citizen $150,000 and every Iraq family $500,000? This figure is based on Iraq’s population estimated presently at twenty-five million.

Based upon the three trillion dollar cost of the war to date, it has cost each US citizen $10,000 dollars. Of course the reality is that this war has cost you and me to date not one single penny. This total five year three trillion dollar debt has been borrowed and will be a burden on our children and grandchildren for many years to come.

At the present cost of 25 billion a month, two more years of staying in Iraq is another 600 billion of debt our grandchildren will owe our foreign sovereign creditors in China and the Middle East.

The entire three trillion dollars was given away through so-called “emergency supplementals,” meaning that your money was spent completely outside the normal budgeting process and without the normal budget caps. It is the equivalent of writing Uncle Sam a blank check.

These were quick and easy give-away dollars that our grandchildren will be paying interest on far out into the unforeseeable future. In other words three trillion dollars was given out in an un-scrutinized, undifferentiated and totally unaccountable fashion.

Contrast this administration’s shoddy spending and record keeping practices on the Iraq war with how it is presently dealing with the present home mortgage crisis. It has taken this administration since last August to help fewer than 2,500 of more than 2 million Americans staring at foreclosure this year.

While our defense department can pay over 150,000 private security contractors over $400,000 per person, plus expensive life insurance policies, compared to only $40,000 per US soldier per year, this administration has scrutinized and micro-managed to death assistance to struggling American homeowners.

For these prospective recipients saddled with foreclosed houses, the “appropriateness” of government loans or insurance is calculated down to the smallest detail including itemized tax returns and assorted eligibility requirements. When asked to help Americans in need here on the home front the issue of how much taxpayer money should be put at risk suddenly becomes this administration’s chief concern.

Since World War II it appears no longer necessary for the people’s national legislature – our Congress - to pass a formal declaration of war. Now it is also becoming increasingly popular for our congressional leaders to shirk their constitutional responsibilities by simply approving humongous blank checks to the President to fight his own personal wars.

Contact your Congress persons and tell them that you aren’t going to take it any more. Tell them that you no longer consider them responsible stewards of the peace nor sufficiently competent to manage the people’s finances. Tell them that you will be looking for a new representative to do the people’s business in Washington. Get out and vote in the upcoming election and write in the name of the person who you think will represent you and your country’s best interests.

After you have written your letter or made your call, visit your nearest library or bookstore and pick up “The Three Trillion Dollar War” by laureate Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard economist Linda Bilmes on the true cost of the US Invasion and Occupation of Iraq.

Respectfully,
William R. Benedict, Madison