If Bush won't stop the war, will he at least require a more careful accounting of what we're paying for?

Question

I'm not happy that my federal tax dollars bought an in-ground swimming pool for someone's freaking HOUSE in Iraq.

b_latham: Could you please point out where I EVER said Bush was "pocketing" the money? Read more carefully, dear.

Answer 1

Congress can ask for that can't they? maybe they should... well. no maybe.. with the way it's been ran (just throwing money at the problem) they definitely should.

Answer 2

There's no reason why you should be happy over that.

But there's no chance that 'W' will see the light; all his advisers, (whom he 'inherited' from his father's regime,) and the rest of his whole 'famn damily' [sic] are far too well invested in

1) munitions,

2) armaments

3) & large scale re-construction (Bechtel, the Carlyle Group, anyone?)

to even any idea other than that "We're not in business to put ourselves out of business".

What else may we expect from a pair of Presidents (B41 & B43) whose family fortune comes from the petroleum industry? Except that they will NOT fail to extract every drop of oil from the ground before the green revolution drops the price down to 1970 levels. Not to mention the hidden, 'zero-point' energy systems which will drop the price even lower, down to the cost of the utility of plastic.

And the price of war is cheap;

no-bid, cost-plus (profits guaranteed) contracts to your friends,

no accounting for the cash, now that the Federal Reserve System no longer is required to report the M-3

and all the cannon-fodder you want, now that the financial crunch has made so many of us non-college grads unemployed,

(and lets face it, others peoples kids aren't important*...it's not like we're going to see Jenna & Barbara Bush in "The Road to Baghdad" on the small screen anytime soon. John Kerry went to Vietnam; "W" stuck it out in the Alabama National Guard. Kept 'Bama safe from the Viet Cong, I suppose.)

*Not to this administration, at least.

b_latham:

Bush's friends will take care of him after he leaves office, I'm sure; after all, he's taking care of them now. That's how this sort of thing works. He'll end up on the board of directors of several different corporations and be required to attend meetings once or twice a year each, and be paid $50,000 to $200,000 per annum for the duty.

As to where the money is going now, check out:

Jeremy Scahill
"Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army"

Avalon Publishing Group, 2007

In an interview with Terry Gross, on NPR's 'Fresh Air', Scahill stated that Blackwater combatants receive (as I recall) c $900
for every two days of active duty. This is about as much as the average US 'grunt' is paid in a month.

interview (March 19, 2007):

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=8992128


Dave_Stark:

Good call on the pork barrel politics. Thanks for the links.
But "It's on the Web, it must be true"...Well, "It's on the Web, it's obviously not true" is NOT automatically so, either. And although you didn't mention it, just because it's on Fox News, doesn't prove it's true, either. If anything, quite the contrary; I thought everyone knew that Faux News was a wholly owned subdivision of the Republican Party.

David Brock;
"The Republican Noise Machine: right-wing media and how it corrupts democracy"

Crown Publishers, 2004

(Continued, if I can tolerate more of this nonsense.) (See comments, if reading post-resolution.)

Answer 3

"I read it on the web, so it must be true".

Are you happy that $4 billion of your federal tax dollars attached to the military funding bill are going to pay for farm subsidies? Are you happy about $120 million of your tax dollars going to support the fishing industry? Are you happy about $16 million going to renovate office space for Congress -- attached as a pork-barrel earmark to the Military funding bill that the DEMOCRATS in Congress (both the Senate and the House) just passed? Check out the full list here:
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/opinion/20070330_opchart.pdf

You want an accounting of the spending? Then we need better transparency from Congress, who voted down a proposed bill that would have listed all the pork-barrel garbage that each Senator/Representative attached to every bill in order to prove who are the biggest wastrels of your money and mine.

Answer 4

I don't want to see tax dollars wasted either but Congress also needs to stop adding pork to bills to get the needed votes to pass something. Or at least keep the pork to 2 items or less.

Answer 5

bush wont stop the war and i may not pay taxes yet but most of the money may be used on the troops but that does nt mean bush is pocketing the money he need to release the troops and stop the hole thing before 08 and we get a new president then we all going to be having a mouse chase

Answer 6

Who is really paying for the Iraq war? The American consumers or the Chinese laborers who send in cheap materials to the American consumers on credit (Chinese investment in US Treasury bills)?

Answer 7

Bush won't stop the war because the insurgents won't stop the war. It's a game of chicken. We can't afford to lose and let Iraq devolve into worse chaos, to allow an even worse regime to take hold that will surely come after us.

Answer 8

Hey, you're just going to have to realize that war costs money. A lot of it. Our military can't function without help Dude, and it takes money to buy them supplies. At least this war is just. I'll pay taxes through the roof of my house to keep my family safe. Thanks to Mr. Bush, you are. I haven't seen anymore terror attacks on American soil, since 9/11. Have you?

Answer 9

Government is way too large for people like us to control. Unfortunately, there will always be waste........and I will call my government on it, but not in the arena of the war effort. America needs to stand behind it`s leaders and troops when the **** is hitting the fan.

Answer 10

Hey it bought more then that . I am sure it paid for the house and barbque grill if you look closer .