Please Allow Me to Rant

I was sitting here at my desk listening to "To the Point" with Warren Olney when I had this sudden compulsion to spit my gum out at my monitor. The topic of today's program is "How Much is America Spending on the War in Iraq?". If you check the link tomorrow, there should be a podcast available.

What nearly caused the catapult-ulation of my Coolmints Icebreakers onto my Samsung LCD monitor was a mere number. Two trillion dollars, to be exact. That's two thousand billion dollars, not exactly chump change, so to speak. What will really blow your mind is if you put that amount in perspective with what Congress was told it was going to cost to fight the war in Iraq, a mere 60 billion dollars.

Think of it like this.

You go to a slot machine in Vegas with the full intentions of winning that million dollar jackpot on nickel slots. You put in your nickel, pull the handle and get nothing. So you put another nickel in. And another. After all, it's a million dollars we are talking about here! So two days later, you've soldiered through your checking account, cashed in your 401K, and put your house up as collateral with the Casino. You're still sitting there plugging nickels into that machine though. Your accountant calls. He tells you that your Mercedes has been repossesed. You keep dropping the coins in the slot. You get the picture?

Okay, I know that's a little of a stretch analogy. But you really have to wonder. With the President recently requesting that the debt ceiling be raised, how does he intend to pay for prosecuting this war until it's final resolution, which as we are hearing now may be in 10 years or more? And how do you do that with deficit spending and permanent tax cuts? Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for tax cuts. Who likes to pay taxes? But it seems to me that if we keep borrowing money from overseas to pay for the war, eventually China is going to come over here and slapped PWN3D stickers on everything it can stake a claim in.
Here are some highlights from Harvard Economist Linda Bilmes recent cost report.

[snip]Spending up to $2 trillion should make us ask some questions. First,
these figures are far higher than what the administration predicted before the
war. At that time, White House economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey was effectively
fired for suggesting that the war might cost up to $200 billion, rather than the
$60 billion claimed by the president's budget office. Why were the costs so
vastly underestimated? Elsewhere in the government, it is standard practice to
engage in an elaborate cost-benefit analysis for major projects. The war in Iraq
wasseriously. Is anyone else out there having a WTF moment or is it just me? Should we be taking the a war of choice, an immense "project," and yet it now appears that there was
virtually no analysis of the likely costs of a prolonged occupation.

Had we waited, the value of the information we would have learned from the
inspectors would arguably have saved the nation at least $1 trillion enough money to fix Social Security for the next 75 years twice
over.[/snip]

I mean cost of war into consideration or does that simply bolster "the enemy's" morale as some who are supportive of the war insinuate? What will this cost our children or our grandchildren? In retrospect, was there a better solution?

I would love to hear some Conservatives answer some of those questions.

Okay, I'm done ranting for now!

Link: 3 Year Spending Report (PDF)