[loyalgagora]

Originally posted by DanS
The war hasn't impacted our long-term fiscal situation very much. You make the same mistake that people like Oerdin do: Confusing non-recurring items with recurring items. We spend about $75 - $100 billion a year keeping our guys in the field in Iraq and Afghanistan. But they will leave Iraq and Afghanistan sooner or later.

As for the tax cuts, I think they made a lot of sense and they should have been done several years ealier by Clinton.

So because Iraq and Afghanistan aren't recurring expenses you decide to just not count them when looking at the overall fiscal picture?



That may be convenient for the way you want to spin things, but those expenses are very significant, and regardless of whether or not we are going to be in Iraq in the next ten years (the long term situation ), you still have to consider those expenses when looking at the overall fiscal situation and how Bush's policies have affected the deficit and the debt.

I'm not commenting on whether or not the War in Iraq was morally right or whatnot. I don't care about that. It's irrelevant for the purpose of this discussion. But the fact is, it was not necessary to go to war. Strategically, Bush made a horrible blunder. Fiscally, Bush made a horrible blunder.

Even before his presidency, Bush was an awful administrator and businessman. And since becoming President, he has done nothing to show that he is capable of managing such budgets. Fortunately, the United States is not going to simply "fail" like his past business ventures have. Though, his presidency has certainly put America in a difficult situation fiscally. It is going to take a long time for the United States' fiscal situation to become healthy once again.

Most intelligent people capable of looking at the situation objectively recognize this.

I understand that many people who support Bush do so because he is the only choice for their political views. He is the primary representative of the Republican Party. But having said that, I don't see how any intelligent person with right-leaning views who has any economic sense can think Bush's policies have been a good thing for the fiscal health of this country.

I would say such people are letting their own biases and ideology get in the way of their objectivity when it comes to analyzing the situation.

Though, if it's just about fooling one's self and trying to put a positive spin on things despite knowing that deep down things really do suck, I can understand that.