Tuesday, April 29, 2008

A splash of irony with your morning coffee

In a speech from the Rose Garden this morning, the continual embarrassment that is our President chastised Congress for not doing enough to assuage Americans' financial worries.

"I repeatedly submitted proposals to help address the problems. Time after time, Congress chose to block them," Sir Incompetence said.

You mean kinda like the proposals to keep funding the war in Iraq? It is currently estimated that the war in Iraq has cost American taxpayers over $515 billion. $515 billion could go a long way to alleviating the problems Americans face regarding the housing market and student loan availability. To make this number even more real, $515 billion equates to approximately $4,700 per household. Your family has paid $4,700 in real dollars to support the war. Take a moment and think of what you could do with $4,700. Doesn't it make you angry?

However, instead of admitting mistake and ending a purposeless war that will bleed the pockets of Americans for years to come, President Bush carries on arrogantly as usual and selectively ignores information. Instead of acknowledging the billions of dollars we have been shredding since 2003, he attacks Congress for not doing enough to fix the economic mess our country is in.

Now, I'm not saying the recession was caused by the war in Iraq. Nor am I saying that we could have avoided the mortgage mess if not for the war. What I am saying, though, is that Congress would have a lot more room to fix it with that $515 billion in the bank.

If Bush wants to point fingers, he ought to start by pointing at himself.

2 comments:

Ray Gratzner said...

I think that are only the most visual cost. The high oil price - result of the war- the weak dollar, that are too facts that will cost the american citizen further money

durano lawayan a.k.a. brad spit said...

HI Erica,

The war in Iraq was funded by money borrowed from China. That will have to be paid plus interest. This war and its cost caused the dollar to lose value, making everything America imports more expensive. The mortgage crisis was caused by greed, with brokers selling homes by providing low deposits and low interest and mortgage payments for the first year or so - to attract those they knew who cannot afford it when the offer is lifted. These were then packaged through their partner banks and sold as investments. The banks then used these "assets" to borrow funds from foreign banks, converted others into bonds. The money from these went into the war too.

If you're looking for a connection, there is. That's why the Republicans will never admit that the war was a mistake. It is not a mistake, it is a lie. They went there to destroy weapons of mass destruction, but knew there were none. They merely wanted to control the flow of oil for their own distribution and profit. Think Halliburton.

They will profit from oil refining and distribution and would not want this to stop, that's one reason they keep contesting Al Gore's presentations as alarmist - but the evidence is very clear and indisputable. Only a dummy of the greediest group of capitalists will fail to see it - and I'm afraid that's exactly what America has. :-) --Durano, done!