[quote=Frank_Nitti][quote=olivant][quote=Frank_Nitti][quote=olivant]
The Congressional Joint Economic Committee published its fndings in November 2007 that estimated the costs of both the war in Iraq and in Afghanistan at $800 billion. There are 1,000 billions in a trillion. Do the math.
Yes, but that's 800 billion that had to be taken away from other programs who in turn had to ...borrow the funds to make up for the insufficiency caused by the allocation of war funds. Thus, when thought of in these terms--the amount of loans sought by those 'programs' who lost their funding to the war--that 800 billion figure begins to swell.
That doesn't make any sense. $800 billion is $800 billion. It doesn't matter what it was spent on. You either have the revenue to spend on it or you don't. If you don't, you borrow it. Because federal reveunes from 2001 through 2006 were not sufficiient to pay for federal expenditures during those years, the Republican controlled Congress (which also formulates and approves the annual federal budgets) authorized the Treasury Departmdent to borrow approximately $5 trillion.
Governments typically finish in the red each and every fiscal year, there's nothing abnormal about that. The question is, how much. You say it's 5 trillion. And I say when you combine the 800 billion spent for the war (+) additional 800 billion or so that must be borrowed to make up for the 800 billion taken away from 'programs' and allocated to the war (-) about a 1/2 trillion from that 5 trillion figure that is interest accrued (+) about another trillion or so used for homeland security here at home and at our bases and embassies around the world: you end up with a deficit of about 2 trillion and not 5 trillion, with the remaining 3 trillion (rightfully) used in the 'war on terror'...Point Being: Republican is the party of economists, not Democrat.
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Where do you get these figures? They're hugely exaggerated and wrong. Where did you get 2 trillion, or 3 trillion or 5 trillion that you cite? Why do you refer to them as deficits. Do you uinderstand what a budget deficit is? It is the annual difference between what the federal government spends and the revenue it takes in. Do you understand what the national debt is? It is the unretired debt which the US Treasury owes to those who have lent funds to the federal government. The Congress has authoriized a national debt of $10.5 trillion. When President Bush took office the national debt was about $5 trillion. From then through 2006 while the Republicans were in control of the Congress, that debt rose to almost $10 trillion. Those annual Congresses made spending decisions (such as Earmarks) that greatly exceeded anticipated revenues.
By the way, someone posted that the last budget surplus was under Nixon in '69. Not so. The federal government experienced surpluses 1998-2001. Also, interest on the national debt is estimated at about $250 billion annually.
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