The cost of war and the economy

One year ago the talking points coming out of the left were full of references to the amount of money George W Bush spent on the war in Iraq. Olbermann and the Huffington Post would blast Bush almost daily for spending a trillion dollars in Iraq. Barack Obama took office exactly 22 days ago and has proceeded to spend 2 trillion dollars. In spite of this 2 trillion dollar expenditure, unemployment has almost doubled, from 3.8 to 7.2%, the Dow Jones is down over 200 points, banks still are not lending money despite the fact that our tax dollars went towards their bailout and homes are losing value at record rates. Barack Obama says that the current economy is the worst it has been since the great depression and it is in his best interest to do so. If he happens to be President when we emerge from this, then he looks like a hero; if he is unable to bring us out of this, then he can say he inherited the worst economy since the 1930's. Despite Barack Obama's claims, this economy isn't the worst since the depression. It's not even the worst since 1980. Ronald Reagan inherited much higher unemployment and inflation rates. However, let me fill you in on how much money 1 trillion dollars is. If you spent 1 million dollars every day since Jesus Christ was born through today, you still would only be at 3/4 of a trillion dollars. In fact, you wouldn't spend a trillion dollars until sometime around 2740!!! The problem with Obama's stimulus bill is that it won't stimulate the economy immediately, if ever. The Congressional Budget Office, a group with no political ties and whose job it is to track money being spent in Congress, has said that the stimulus won't stimulate the economy at all. The reason? First of all, the money won't get into the economy fast enough. Only 9% or 26 billion will be flowing into the economy by the end of the fiscal year (Sept 2009). Second, less than half of the 30 billion set aside for highway construction will be in the economy within 4, with only 4 billion being spent by September 2010. Finally, only 1 out of every 7 dollars set aside for "green" jobs will be spent by the end of 2010. The CBO says that the stimulus plan is so backloaded that by the time the money makes it into the economy, the downturn would have ended on its own. They also said that short term gains would be nullified by long term losses. In essence, the economy would be better off if Obama did nothing at all. On top of the time table problems, the Dems in Congress, namely Pelosi and Reid, have tried to introduce such things as expanded funding for abortions and condom give aways into the stimulus package. Clearly there are problems with this stimulus package and some of the items budgeted for. If a stimulus package is an absolute must, and most economists agree that we are at that point, then only include items that directly and immediately stimulate the economy. If items such as the proposals from Reid and Pelosi are viable then let them stand on their own at a later date. But don't try to throw in items like giving condoms away at public schools and try to pass it off as an economic stimulus package. 1 trillion dollars is a ton of money. We are probably going to have to borrow from China or Japan in order to fund this package. If that's the case then this is truly a national security issue. Barack Obama better make sure that this is the answer before he sells our soul to the devil. Because if he's not, then the cure may be worse than the disease.