As far as medical care for veterans, you are being really flippant about the welfare of our returning soldiers. But that is typical of Republicans nowadays. They have no problem sending our soldiers to fight their wars, but then balk at the cost of medical care when they return to pay for prosthetics, rehabilitation, and recuperating from post-traumatic stress disorder. Those costs are real and would not have been incurred had there been no war. 4,100 dead, 30,000 wounded, 300,000 with PTSD.
As far as gas and oil, you'd have to be incredibly naive to think that Middle East instability has no effect on prices. Of course it does. Everyone talked about the peace dividend in the 90's. Well, now we're experiencing the war penalty. It's not all of the price, but it's a portion of it.
As far as interest, of course that has to be included. If you borrow money to finance anything, then the principal and interest are part of the costs. We cut taxes and borrowed money to finance this war. We'll have to pay that back. Again, only an economic moron would say that interest doesn't count, especially when 20% of the US annual budget now goes to paying interest instead of doing good for the American people. $10 trillion in debt. $5 trillion extra in Bush's tenure. A darn good chunk of that has gone to the War on Terror. |
