That’s the number McClatchey is going for:
President Barack Obama met Monday evening with his national security team to finalize a plan to dispatch some 34,000 additional U.S. troops over the next year to what he’s called “a war of necessity” in Afghanistan, U.S. officials told McClatchy.
Obama is expected to announce his long-awaited decision on Dec. 1, followed by meetings on Capitol Hill aimed at winning congressional support amid opposition by some Democrats who are worried about the strain on the U.S. Treasury and whether Afghanistan has become a quagmire, the officials said.
The U.S. officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the issue publicly and because, one official said, the White House is incensed by leaks on its Afghanistan policy that didn’t originate in the White House.
That’s an interesting turn of phrase – it implies that leaks originating within the White House are perfectly fine. Gotta control that narrative.
Either way, I’m prolly off of SecDef’s Christmas card list.
Meanwhile, Barney Frank and Charlie Rangel (while he lasts) are signing on to David Obey’s plan to stick the middle class with the war bill. Ex-Marine John Murtha apparently is on board as well.
Which should tell you all you need to know.
Addendum to an earlier post regarding I & W and Afghanistan
Everybody should read “Kite Runner” and “A Thousand Spendid Suns” while you are thinking about Afghanistan.
Did the readers here know that General Chuck Yeager was the U.S. Govt’s ranking military official in that region as his last official post? His biography and the books above give some good descriptions of life there, the people, culture and insight to a way of life we cannot begin to understand unless we go oursleves.
Frankly, I think there is more harm in pulling out.
Jives with what I see/hear.
I think it is ironic that people who are opposed to pulling out of Afghanistan or Iraq are also greatly opposed to any tax increase to actually pay for the approximately 657 billion dollars that it cost in FY’09 to keep our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen, and Marines in business in both theaters. How else are we going to stop the ever increasing deficit? I feel like our country is spending like some 18 year old kid with a credit card and an no limit. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. The 1% tax increase, from what the article says, limits the additional tax liability for a family earning jointly earns up to $150K at $226. I’m not saying that I agree with the plan, but is there a better one out there? I know some people say that we should cut government programs and reduce its size, but you can only do that to a point. Frankly, I’m not opposed to paying a little more in taxes if it keeps our country from going further into the red or it improves the standard of living (as in Education or Health Care), but I don’t feel like getting into THAT debate here.
Simple. Repeal the ‘stimulus’. Freeze non-military Federal spending. Use military/DOD civilian managers to restructure the welfare bureaucracy and increase efficiency.
I think it’s telling that every time the left has suggested tax increases to fund new social programs they’ve always set them up as a “soak the rich” proposal. But this time, for the first time I’ve ever seen, they want to tax the middle class – if you can call an annual income of $30,000 “middle class”. What do you think? Is their objective to fund the destruction of the Taliban, or to enlist the middle class to resist it? This isn’t an attempt to bring financial responsibility to the U.S. – if it was, they’d stop trying to implement all these new entitlements. No, it’s a thinly-veiled attempt to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
(rolls eyes)
aeroeng, that’s pretty cute, equating the entire 2010 DoD budget with the cost of the two current campaigns. Anyone who (God forbid) actually took two minutes to read the proposal would find out that $663.8 billion is for the entire DoD, of which $130 billion is to support “overseas contingency operations.” At least they dropped the whole supplemental request idea.
No, $130 isn’t chicken feed either, but whining about $634 billion DoD budget while kicking total fed spending to nearly $4 trillion with a deficit of $1.7 trillion for 2009 alone, is farcical.
In fact, the above summary demonstrates that the proposed “war tax” would only raise $68 billion, which doesn’t even cover the proposed “contingency” (AKA war on Islamofascism) operations next year.
…And while you’re at it, ask Mary Landrieu about returning that $300 million bribe, if the Democrats are so darned worried about funding. Feh.
[...] Neptunus Lex looks at the Obama White House leak policy, also the political part: Murtha sighting, with taxes. [...]
Aero
So why the difference in “pay as you go” for the war, but not for health care, education, transportation, medicare/medicaid, and social security as well? We can’t run a deficit to wage a war but we can 1.5 trillion in debt to do what? throw money to ACORN, NEA, GM, Chrysler, et al? Strange how 12 months ago this was “a war that must be won”, and now is “a war that must be paid for before we fight”.
Hope. Change. Lunacy. Financial plunderment. Maybe if the masses “just say no” and no one pays the tax we will see some real fireworks.
Durn you, G-Man. Stole the words right out of my mouth.
Good on ya…
Aero,
We can allocate trillions of, as yet unearned, dollars to health care and welfare without much more justification from the Administration than “This is impotent stuff. We gotta do it now!”. War fighting, on the other hand, to keep the Taliban in check and, more importantly, keep them in their playground instead of ours, must be fact checked, delayed, justified through innumerable rounds of parlay, delayed some more, and then finally be accused of wasting valuable tax dollars. Rome may not yet be burning, but it seems to me that any number of our Congress idiots are standing by with a can of gas and matches ready to light.
Just thinking about the budget during the Eisenhower years, when the Defense portion easily consumed 50%+. How did we make it work then? Is it possible that people were expected to be more personally responsible for their own health care and budgets, and that government had a better sense of not having to fix everything down to the level of the individual? This simple mind wonders…
Lets see three Army Birgades…one Marine Brigade plus an additional “7000 strong division headquarters”…to be sent to take control of US led NATO forces in southern Afghanistan…sounds like a sh*t- load of HQ people to me. Best
Actually, I have absolutely no problem paying taxes to support the defense of this country. It’s a lot of the other stuff I have problems with. Aeroeng asks “How else are we going to stop the ever increasing deficit?” How about cutting spending in areas that are NOT constitutionally mandated functions of the Federal Government.
Interestingly, this morning on a radio news broadcast it was announced that the President has said that a decision would very soon be announced and that the public would really like it. Which tells me that in the time leading up to the present, someone has had his finger in the air to figure out what to do…Sounds, again, like pols using polls to make decisions instead of smarts & the country’s best interests at heart.
In other news (precursor to threadjacking): Female Swedish soldiers renew calls for fireproof undies.
Just thought Lexonauts would find this as “news they could use” on such a dreary news day.
Can I volunteer to take measurements and “test” for standards of “heat” resistance, xformed?
They’ll probably take you. Old enough to not be a threat…:)
Xf, Thanks for the diversion…I didn’t think Swedes of any sex had been in a firefight since the Thirty Years War…no matter…a Svenska Flicka in fireproof knickers…works for me. Best
PS, Hey whats with that rifle inspection technique ?…eyeball to eyeball with the one eyed monster…troubling…
The Swedes were fighting in Russia against Peter the Great – early 1700s, as I recall.
QM, Suggest you Google “The Thirty Years War” …the Prods vs. the Papists ( 1616-1648)where all will be revealed/clarified. Best
I have a novel idea for paying for Afghanistan instead of taxing us even more….
I am thinking maybe Congress could scale down or eliminate one of the social programs that aren’t, you know, Constitutionally required to pay for national defense which is, you know, Constitutionally required.
Right there with you, I’d argue that Congress has acted like children and operate under the impression that anything not specifically cited as prohibited is allowed if only they can somehow work in interstate commerce or national defense as a possible side effect.
For example, Walter Williams has a great article at:
http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/11/25/a_minority_view_voluntarism_or_self-interest
There is a National Organ Transplant Act that prevents me, under Federal Law, from taking money or other compensation for my bone marrow or organs. Now I’m not a Constitutional scholar but I’m not finding anywhere in the document that my bone marrow crosses state lines, affects trade, or otherwise is anybody else’s darned business. Where in the heck did Congress determine they had the power to tell me what I could do with my marrow?
I’ll never forget the time the USDA decided I was a farmer. My wife bought some turkeys and chickens, and I rented 6 acres to a neighbor in return for some corn to feed them with. Suddenly, I met the qualifications of a farmer. My county agent, tired of sending me 200-page booklets with forms to fill out, finally filled them out for me and sent a copy that only required my signature. As a result, I was given the agricultural census along with the regular one, had to keep track of farm-related expenses versus my normal lifestyle expenses, and I received my first farm subsidy check.
$18. So, you know, Mom was finally able to afford that operation.
The USDA plants not one crop, nor does it harvest any grain. The USDE educates not one child. The DoE produces not a kilowatt of electricity. The Department of Labor produces not one job, and the Department of Health and Human Services cares for no patients.
Until we can get Congress to realize that not everything is under their care, and get a Supreme Court to so rule, we’re left with a nation run by lawyers spending other people’s money to buy favor and be re-elected.
Which, of course, means we’re pretty much screwed.
– Max
I’ll be there (AFGH) in the next few weeks & will drop a note to our esteemed web host on what the BILLIONS is buying…stay tuned boys & girls
Good luck to you and thank you for your courageand commitment!
Good luck and stay safe.
Keep the bad guys at bay, and don’t get your a$$ shot off.
Best.
Wars are extraordinarily expensive. And naturally, all our citizens are ultimately liable for the massive bill…. Sooner or later.
It is fascinating to note that the whirlwind 7th War Bond Drive of WWII, following four years of bitter war and earlier drives, raised $26.3 Billion in1945 dollars! And it was mostly the middle class that bought them.
(Of course it didn’t hurt that the three remaining survivors of the Iwo Jima flag raising were recalled for the tour to promote it.)
Today we either try to ignore and/or postpone the costs of our wars, while sloughing off the current war bill to the Red Chinese.
7th War Bond Photo
I often thought that a War Bond drive would be a very real way to involve the citizens in the war effort. It would force those who “oppose the war but support the troops” to explain exactly how one can support the troops without giving them the means to wage the war.
One of all of the wartime President’s failures since WWII has been the failure to bring home a sense of shared sacrifice to the citizens. I’m not in favor of another tax to fund the war at this point as it makes no sense to ask for sacrifice for this while promising a free lunch for just about every other thing under the sun to the voters. But fiscal irresponsibility is fiscal irresponsibility no matter what the use of the funds are.
President Clinton did balance the budget to his credit aided by the huge economic boom that proved to be unsustainable when the Internet Bubble burst. But balance he did by working with a Republican Congress and by taking on the left wing of his party in passing true welfare reform – something President Obama is working to undo thinking that keep the impoverished dependent somehow a more compassionate approach then fostering independence and responsibility.
Wars are expensive and yet cheap when compared to the cost of enslavement or the cost of living under the threat of a nuclear armed Islamic terrorist threat.
I’d buy the bonds if they were for sale, in fact I think they should sell them right next to “Government Health Care” bonds and let’s see which one garners enough popular support to enable them to occur. If the current health care reforms were not being sold as only going to cost “the rich” and therefore “free” for everyone who doesn’t consider themselves that way it would never survive a committee vote, let alone be rammed down an unsuspecting population long numbed to the follies of the Congress, having giving up in truly having the country’s interest put first by the corrupt cesspool that is Washington.
(again rolls eyes)
Yep, and the 1945 defense budget was $64.53 billion (1940 $), and total fed expenditures were $72.11 for the entire year. In other words, defense spending was very nearly 90% of all federal spending that year.
Also note that the above 1945 fed budget was 41.56% of the nominal GDP of the time ($173.52 billion).
So, yeah, if DoD was 90% of the federal budget, and the total budget was around $5.8 trillion ($14 trillion * .4156), I’d be in favor of massive war bond sales myself.
This stunt is yet another attempt by this administration to sneak yet another tax burden on the citizens of this country.
I agree with suggestions already made with respect to federal budget cuts. For starters.
Since when do Democrats give a Rat’s A** about “…the strain on the U.S. Treasury”?!!!!
President Clinton’s rare balancing the budget and providing a federal surplus is but one example of giving a Rat’s A**…… ya think?
You mean when he signed the budgets a Republican controlled congress forced upon him?
Also, if I’m not mistaken, a good bit of that budget balancing was done on the backs of the miltary.Lots of RIF goin’ on. Also, if I remember correctly, training was cut way back, as well as, cutting the number of ships in the Navy. I could be wrong about those cuts; but, I don’t think so.
I know some people say that we should cut government programs and reduce its size, but you can only do that to a point.
Cut the DoEd- it doesn’t teach anyone.
Cut the DoE- it doesn’t produce any energy.
Cut the HUD- it doesn’t build any housing. And somehow urban areas managed to develop long before it existed.
Any other federal departments you’d like to see eliminated?
Any and all farm subsidies would be nice to whack as well (though food stamps are usually hidden in the farm bill. I’m not terribly opposed to food stamps).
Dang, how many more arrows you got in that quiver?
Fire ON!!
How about a tune up on Immigration, and Homeland Security,
Add the White and Congress. Little coming out of there but increased expenditures.
Boy, starting with Mongo and everybody else here who fell in trail with their comments about the Democrats newly-found love for financial restraint I can only second every comment above. For the Donkey party–the party who INVENTED deficit spending–to now worry about deficit spending to support our effort in Af takes a Lake Superior-sized vessel full of un-mitigated gall!
I am happy to pay more taxes to ensure that the Taliban fulfill their wish to be martyred. what chaps my @$$ is the other horse pooh Congress wastes money on.
how about a “stupidity surcharge” on Congress? that ought to balance the budget, all on its own….
War bonds would be a great idea. The military’s at war, America’s at the mall, and all that.
I’d actually go along with the War Tax, too, except that an additional 1% adds up to a lot of cash, and having a pot of gold that big sitting there would be too tempting as a “slush fund” to “borrow” from for other programs.
I can see the justifications now: “Well, our returning vets need healthcare, too, so spending it on the healthcare bill is a war expenditure.”
War bonds… purpose specific. So very happy to welcome concern about balancing the budget from the left. I also agree with so many of the above ideas on how to achieve the reduction in spending. Good on us all… let’s go for it, fliterman to lead the way!
Note to Congress Idiots: War Bond Drive…Soonest!
I’m not sure I like the War Tax notion, given Congressional predilection for unaccounted for spending. Then there’s the ongoing nature of a tax. War Bond drives may be a one time or many time venture, but they have an end. Taxes are more like a cancer for which there is no cure, and just keep on agoin’.
I thought we were selling War Bonds … oh, wait, *those* are Treasury bonds and the Chinese are buying them…
- SJS
Brad, you need to add the liberal folderal they secrete in the DOD budget. There’s a ton of stuff that has nothing to do with operating DOD in their budget.
I started out addressing this to “Bard” in stead of Brad. Your avatar is confusing my keyborad.
Well there is a gihugent difference in my po’ ole southern boy brain between a war bond – something that equals a sum borrowed with a promise to pay back with interest based upon money that had a standard to support it, versus a regressive tax that is open ended and for which you get nothing in return. And for which there are no rules defining expenditures as Mongo has stated.
What we need is a snappy slogan like “buy a bullet for Tali-Baba” or “72 virgins need a man. Won’t you please give?” or “pay your tax to support our attacks”, followed up with some nice poster work a la the WWII bond posters. Give us all warm fuzzies.