A friend left a comment which I hope to address here. I'll post it below and then my reply thereafter.
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My reply after the fold...
AD always good to talk politics with ya. We might not make headway but at least we can say we tried.
On Iraq
The Bush administration gave us two reasons for invading Iraq. The first was to stop Saddam’s WMD program. The second was to keep Saddam from giving those weapons to terrorists like bin Laden, whom we were led to believe had a direct relationship with Iraq and something to do with 9/11. As it turns out Iraq had no WMD or even the smidgen of a program. Bush was wrong but he was probably given bad intel. The relationship with al Qeada was nothing but a full front lie, however. There was never a relationship with bin Laden—Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11-- and the two madmen couldn’t have been more opposed to each other. Bush's own government concluded with the 9/11 Commission that there was no relationship or anything to do with 9/11.
The whole mission of Iraq, though, encompasses a much larger lie the Bush administration fed to the American people many times. And that was the length and cost of the war. The Bushies said the war would be over in a matter of weeks. That it would pay for itself. Flat out lies. They knew they were lying but you don’t sell a war by saying it’s going to take a decade and a trillion dollars. The mission itself was fed on a silver plattered lie to the American people. As we’ve seen, nothing the Bushies ever told us about Iraq turned out to be true.
As if our Glorious Adventure into Iraq was all President Obama inherited. Among many other messes besides the on-going endless war in Iraq costing the American people billions a month and precious lives, he also still had a back burner war in Afghanistan—the country actually responsible for 9/11 and the very place Bush turned our attention away from to invade a country that had nothing to do with the attacks. Those are two huge messes not to be understated.
Currently there are less troops in Iraq than when Obama took office, and way more in Afghanistan where they need to be than when he took office. Maybe he hasn’t gotten us out of Iraq quick enough or as quickly as you would like, but he has done more to end the war there than anyone. Saying he lied and didn’t get us out quickly is equivalent to saying “hey you haven’t fixed our mess fast enough like you said you would.”
On The Debt
The Obama administration has not increased the debt by $4 trillion. The debt stood over $11.2 trillion when he took office. It’s currently ~$14.2 trillion. As CBO makes note, Obama administration policies account for roughly $1.4 trillion of the federal debt. The remaining difference of ~$1.5 trillion come from left over Bush polices that are still costing us money and naturally still adding to the debt (the wars, Medicare expansion that was totally unfunded, tax cuts, etc.,).
“I don't like Bush's overspending, but Obama is doing it at a rate that would double what W did and you complain about W and say that Obama is just doing a fine responsible job.” That’s just not true at all. I hammer Obama all the time on fiscal matters, especially on this blog. What I do think is the last people we need to listen to, and the least people who should be whining about fiscal matters are Republicans.
“If you are right and they've done most of the damage, why do you complain about them trying to force to govt. to do what most of us have done and cut back on spending, since there isn't as much to spend?” I am right. I know I’m right. That might sound cocky but I no longer care. Anyone who can do simple math can add up who spent what. At least $11trillion of today’s national debt comes from the GOP (the fiscal conservatives mind you). This is basic, elementary mathematical truth.
I’ve not complained about spending cuts. Heck I agree we need to cut spending. Even the president has agreed to spending cuts numerous times. But we can’t possibly cut enough to get us out of debt. We also need new revenue. I do, however, disagree with cutting social programs for the poor while we allow billionaires and huge corporations to evade taxes at will.
Moreover, it is unfathomable that we as a nation can wage two wars and not raise new revenue to help pay for it. Never in history has America done such a thing. The fiscally responsible thing to do when wanting to drop Freedom Bombs is to have the means to pay for it. Likewise, the most fiscally insane thing to do is to wage endless war without raising a single penny to pay for it. That’s exactly how great countries disappear. And that is the very course Republicans put us on.
On Reagan and Big Government
I think your recollection of Reagan in the closing is a bit blurred as well. Reagan did nothing but grow government and spend money. He tripled the national debt. Obama has come nowhere near doing that. Reagan also raised taxes 11 different times. Obama hasn’t raised taxes one penny. So to say that all Obama wants to do is grow government and spend money is to say that he is wanting to do the same thing Reagan did. Is it not?
Never once did Reagan cut spending, shrink government or rein in the deficit. He did nothing but the opposite of that. When revenue was down, he raised taxes. When jobs were scarce, he grew government and added hundreds of thousands of public employees. The public sector employee roll has actually shrunk under Obama (bet you didn’t know that). When the federal debt ceiling needed to be raised--because all he did was increase spending every year-- Reagan issued Congress stern warnings to do it, quickly. And they did it 18 times.
That Republicans are now all of a sudden fiscally conservative and over their wasteful ways is hilarious and disingenuous. There is nothing in their history you can point to that can demonstrate that they govern with what they claim to be their core principles. It’s not that Republicans are just now starting to call themselves conservatives either. They’ve been doing it for a long time. They did it the entire time Reagan tripled the national debt, created huge budget deficits and grew government to enormous levels. They did it again all throughout the Bush years when he doubled the national debt, issued 8 government takeovers of private industry, waged two endless wars without a penny to pay for them, and grew government to its largest levels in history. And now we are supposed to believe Republicans are over it? That’s insane.
It’s not that I’m against spending cuts or alleviating the federal debt. I’m all for that. Anyone would be. It’s that I’m against a political party that has a track record of the doing the exact opposite now wanting us all to believe they are fiscally sane.
Like you say, we probably aren’t going to get much of anywhere on this. And that’s okay. We can disagree. There’s nothing wrong with that. There are a few items, though, that I believe are worth repeating, if anything for the simple sake of repetition.
- Nothing the Bushies told us about Iraq ever turned out to be true.
- Obama has not spent more than every president combined (that’s just not even humanely possible). But yes he is on track to spend more than Bush.
- Roughly 75% of the federal debt comes from Republican policies, most of which are still being continued today by our current president.
- That Republicans have absolutely nothing in their modern history that suggests they govern with their so-called core principles in mind thus there’s no reason we should trust them now when they tell us how to solve their mess.
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