The United States, for better or for worse, has been engaged in combat operations in Iraq since 2003, which our president recently “ended” with the withdrawl of our last combat brigade.
One of the more frequent phrases from the left has been how “costly” the war has been both in lives lost (which is certainly true), but also in resources. From this phrase, they have started to create a meme that the war actually has led us to the great debt we face today. For example:
“It was under Mr Bush that the deficit spiraled out of control as we fought an unnecessary and endless $3,000bn war in Iraq…”
– James Carville, Financial Times.“The Iraq adventure has seriously weakened the U.S. economy, whose woes now go far beyond loose mortgage lending. You can’t spend $3 trillion — yes, $3 trillion — on a failed war abroad and not feel the pain at home.”
– Linda J. Bilmes and Joseph E. Stiglitz, The Washington Post.“First, the facts. Nearly the entire deficit for this year and those projected into the near and medium terms are the result of three things: the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush tax cuts and the recession. The solution to our fiscal situation is: end the wars…”
– Christopher Hayes, The Nation.
Totally untrue.
While there was deficit spending during the Bush years, it has not nearly been at the level we have seen the past two years under President Barack Obama and the liberal Democratic Congress.
American Thinker annihilates this theory with facts – not just what the liberals want to believe. In a nutshell, their post says:
The Iraq War cost $709 billion. Why Carville, Bilmes, and Nobel-winning economist Stiglitz thought the answer was $3 trillion is anybody’s guess. But what’s a 323% error among friends?
The CBO breaks that cost down over the eight calendar years of 2003-2010. Below is a picture of federal deficits over those years with and without Iraq War spending.
Sources: CBO and U.S. Statistical Abstract.
Never let facts get in the way of a good fabrication.
