How are we paying for the Iraq war?

Answer 1

One way our government pays for a lot of things is by borrowing from countries like China.

Another way the government is planning to pay for the war and the hurricane damage is by cutting spending for things like Medicare prescriptions, highway construction, farm payments, AMTRAK, National Public Radio and loans to graduate students. Do these sound like the things you'd like to cut back on to pay for Iraq?

I'll tell you where we ought to start saving: on our bloated military establishment.

We're paying for weapons we'll never use.

No other Country spends the kind of money we spend on our military. Last year Japan spent $42 billion. Italy spent $28 billion, Russia spent only $19 billion. The United States spent $455 billion.

We have 8,000 tanks for example. One Abrams tank costs 150 times as much as a Ford station wagon.

We have more than 10,000 nuclear weapons — enough to destroy all of mankind.

We're spending $200 million a year on bullets alone. That's a lot of target practice. We have 1,155,000 enlisted men and women and 225,000 officers. One officer to tell every five enlisted soldier what to do. We have 40,000 colonels alone and 870 generals.

We had a great commander in WWII, Dwight Eisenhower. He became President and on leaving the White House in 1961, he said this: “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. …"

Well, Ike was right. That's just what’s happened.

Kim - Are you really that uneducated to believe that all of the soldiers are Republican? Get over yourself.

Answer 2

No, you're wrong. The majority of US Treasuries are owned by US concerns. The bonds are not bought out of good will, or because countries like China think they're a great investment. You've missed a big part of the picture: how did the Chinese government end up with trillions in US dollars to invest in the first place: Start with a huge trade deficit (the same thing happened with Japan, and has happened for a very long time with Europe). US person buys a foreign product, pays in US dollars. Foreign company can not spend US dollars in their home country, so they go to their central bank and "covert" US dollars to their local currency. Most central banks do not have precious metal backed currencies, so they just "print" the local money (i.e. generate the credit). The US dollars then pile up in foreign central banks. It is a gigantic shell game, that we, the US taxpayers, are and have been paying for. The foreign governments can buy 'stuff' with the dollars, e.g. military hardware, but mostly the US dollars just pile up. So, they buy US treasuries, and we (the tax payers) pay the interest. We paid about 450 billion in 2006 (don't know what todays numbers are). So: - Foreign governments don't "invest" in treasuries, they just don't have much else that they can do with the us dollars. - Most of the burden of paying for iraq and other nonsense that the US government cooks up "to protect us", are on the backs of the US taxpayers. - You also have to look at the money supply in the US and how it is expanding. Since the US money supply is debt backed, i.e. all money generated (M3) has a treasury bond behind it, there is a lot more money being created than is required to pay for all of the wars we've been in (throughout history). Our money supply is growing exponentially.

Answer 3

It's actually surprisingly hard to tell exactly what money from what source goes into what program.

But it would probably be fair to characterize the Iraq War as being debt-funded. There's no gaurantee that Congress wouldn't, in the absence of the the war, borrow and spend just as much money on other things, though.

Answer 4

Kim is just a brainwashed, uneducated racist teabagger. Not only is the war unfunded but don't forget bushie and Medicare part D which was unfunded also. Now up to over a trillion in debt. BUT nary a word from the teabaggers. They are too busy attempting to bash the President. Just a bunch of hypocrites

Answer 5

This war is paid for by selling Federal Bonds to countries like China. The result is we get cash now and the nations who purchase the bonds get a low interest yield (our debt).

The problem is that China now holds a majority of our bonds and essentially could cash them in at any time (which would crush our economy/dollar value).

Oh and did anyone else notice Kim's reply here? She wants liberal soldiers to die? No wonder her points-earned is in the negatives...how shameful

Answer 6

Typical GOP borrow and spend. Your great grandchildren will still be paying for it. Maybe with a small tax increase and a booming economy it will only go as far as your children or grand children.

Answer 7

We are paying for housing, education, food, clothing and medicade, medicare for the 25 million illegal aliens that are sucking the life out of us.
Wanta complain about something complain about the invasion of this country

Answer 8

By piling up debt. Borrowing money we don't have.

Our government is living the American dream.

Answer 9

Just remember social security because we'll never see that money, its going to be long gone.

Answer 10

WE aren't.
However, our children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be.

Thanks Dubyah. You are a genius.