One man's earmark is another man's stimulus.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tahoe
Printable View
One man's earmark is another man's stimulus.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tahoe
Nope. Iraqis didn't have control then and frankly neither did the US. Its stable now and its time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Fool
The stability which brought about the treaty has zero to do with BO. He was actually against the surge that brought about the environment to have a meaningful Gov't that allowed the US to withdraw.
I thought the 'depends on what the meaing of the word 'is' is' era was over with the new guy.Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Mxy
He's been in office for a month. Of course he didn't "stabilize" Iraq.
Wow the obsession.
Well he was a Senator.
You're a good man T.
Forgot the green text.
He didn't pull these costs out of his ass. It was a thinktank funded by the Department of Defense under Bush who came up with that:Quote:
Originally Posted by Tahoe
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id...tionid=3510203
We have a ton of war-related IOUs to people even if the war stopped today, like I was saying in another post.Quote:
President Barack Obama intends to ask the US Congress for more than USD 200 billion to cover the country's war spending.
According to the US defense officials, Obama needs USD 75.5 billion for 2009 to cover the cost of the additional troops deployed in to Afghanistan this year and an another USD 130 billion for the rest of fiscal 2009.
Meanwhile, the sources added that the 2010 War spending will be part of the president's overall defense funding request to be announced on Thursday.
The war spending request will be in addition to USD 534 billion for the US Defense Department's other expenditures.
The US Congress had already approved USD 65.9 billion in emergency wartime spending for fiscal 2009.
This is while late December, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA) reported that the direct cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could reach as high as USD 1.7 trillion by 2018 even with fewer troops in Iraq.
The CSBA report found that the war in Iraq alone has already cost more in inflation-adjusted dollars than every other US war except World War II.
The cost of sending a single soldier to fight for a year in Afghanistan or Iraq is about USD 775,000 - three times more than in other recent wars, the report said.
The report concluded that the nearly USD 1 trillion already spent is only a down payment on the war's long-term costs.
Its still crap. He's trying to make himself look good by cutting something that isn't even there.
And it wasn't even in the budget till he put it in the budget process, so he could pull it out to make himself look good.
It not being in the budget was the way your guy tried to keep himself from looking bad when he didn't cut it.
Bush definately kept it out of the budget. I don't know all the reasons, but they couldn't have been good reasons.
It was a joke that Bush kept it off-budget, so fiscal conservatives could claim they're not overspending as badly as they really are. Making the Iraq War part of the budget and not part of supplemental bills is the proper thing to do. Let's be real, here.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tahoe
And I said it was wrong for Bush not to put it in. But it was put in to pull out that number.
Because it's REAL spending. You can't claim it should have been in and then criticize putting it in. Well you can, but it makes no sense.
Now if the dude tries to hide Afghanistan spending or makes some kind of excuse for it, there's something to call out.
I don't think it's wrong to factor Iraq into the budget. It's long overdue. I don't think it's wrong to use the recent Bush estimates (which factor in an eventual withdrawal) as a starting point for deficit reduction. The notion that we stop paying for the Iraq War after we draw down combat troops doesn't factor a litany of future "contractual" costs that rack up the longer we stay.
The Anbar Awakening and our financially encouraging both sides to play nice had more to do with stabilizing Iraq than the surge. The hard part will be that paying off both sides costs money. We've done that in a number of contexts before (e.g. Egypt and Israel) to stabilizing effect, but it only works when you have money and a solid mantle economic leadership.
Fun fun fun...
Mxy is just so fucking cogent.
MANCRUSH
Well if its costing money, how is it a cut?Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Mxy
This is slight of hand bullshit by a politician. I'm really surprised you aren't seeing this one Mxy.
Mxy has this one explained perfectly. It's not about whether it costs money, it obviously does. It's about correctly reporting and including and possibly even controlling or capping that cost within a budget.
And that's not even mentioning the obvious differences in government transparency doing it one way or the other.
No, Mxy doesn't.
This discussion is not about whether to put the war in the budget.
Its bullshit, fictional savings, so he can say he's saving money.
Obama's at the Bulls game tonight in DC>
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rotoworld
Most federal budget savings (and spendings) are based on projections. It's not dirty pool to project spending out based on current commitments, then tweak something that projects out to less spending, and call it a cut -- as long as you are aware that it's a projection. It's not a real increase or cut until the money is actually counted.
#100
I lolled
:gutsy: and :cogent:Quote:
Originally Posted by Gl'enn
And wrong on this one
Obama's been clear that his would-be budget cuts are relative to the Bush budget (+ Iraq, which had been off-budget for far too long) and reasonable projections from that. If you don't think that the Iraq projection is a very reasonable projection from which to do that, then tell me what's wrong with it. If you think the whole notion of projecting then cutting based off the projecting of future costs is disingenuous, well, that's been part of yearly budget concoction forever.
He's not counting the (hopefully) one-time stimulus stuff into it, except as added interest payment on the additional debt. He's not saying "I spent $800 billion now, I'm not gonna spend that $800 billion next year, it's an $800 billion cut". Now THAT would be bullshit... The real test here is -- if this stimulus thing is needed over a buncha years, will it become part of the budget? At that point, any projected "cut" goes out the window (and armageddon has likely arrived, which will satisfy the "end of days" Bushies).
BTW Tahoe... don't you worry...
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...a9d91a27_o.jpg
lol...nice...I'm going to get back on this a lil later. And then I'm going to start a new thread about his budget. :)
Reportedly, he said that to elicit laughs from the audience.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tahoe
LOL *by* BO... ;)
I did end up seeing the clip and it was done with a straight face. It must be on youtube. I'll look it up at some point.Quote:
Originally Posted by Uncle Mxy
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009...rk-repository/
Quote:
President Obama told Congress the day before it passed that he was happy it didn't contain any earmarks, eliciting gales of laughter from the Republican side of the chamber who knew better.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/iain_ma...t_the_queen%20
Quote:
President Obama has been rudeness personified towards Britain this week. His handling of the visit of the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, to Washington was appalling. First Brown wasn't granted a press conference with flags, then one was hastily arranged in the Oval office after the Brits had to beg. Obama looked like he would rather have been anywhere else than welcoming the British leader to his office and topped it all with his choice of present (*) for the PM. A box of 25 DVDS including ET, the Wizard of Oz and Star Wars? Oh, give me strength. We do have television and DVD stores on this side of the Atlantic. Even Gordon Brown will have seen those films too often already.
What is the point of #112? I could understand if it caused him to fall down the stairs or something...
Not at his sharpest in #113. Fumbling around pretty bad there.
Tahoe workin' the H8TER angle pretty hard. Damnable Repulsicans are nothing if not disingenuous about their H8TERNESS for anything un-white, far-right, uptight and OUTTA SIGHT!
And Moxie RULEZ. Mancrush seconded.
He's just a dumbass, thats all. Its funny.Quote:
Originally Posted by WTFchris
If Obama is a dumbass, what does that make Bush?
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooh