Where have all the fiscal conservatives gone..

..or why are we spending so much on an endless war without goals?

More from VoV:

For a long time it’s become clear the fiscal conservatives like the classic liberals have become the unicorns of their respective political parties. These days neither party is interested in reducing the cost of government and neither side has a met a debt increase they didn’t like. No one really asks on a national level these days what are we actually getting for what we’ve paid out in the Middle East? In addition to getting what we’re paying for, one might honestly ask, are we even paying for it at this time or are we using the national credit card to pay for our operations in the Middle East?

Examining costs in the DoD budget, or the budget overall isn’t particularly user friendly by design these days. The Watson Institute wrote this paragraph in a report on Obstacles to Public Understanding of the Costs of War: “

Public access to information about government spending is presumed – and required – by the US Constitution, which directs that:

“A regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time”
(Article 1, Section 9, Clause 7).”

Some estimates come close to 6 trillion dollars since 2001 spent on the GWOT. That number includes Homeland Security spending as a component of Prevention and Response to Terrorism, which used to provide a detailed breakdown of cost based on mission. Oddly enough PL 115-31 has since eliminated that requirement, one wonders why that might have been passed. Well one wonders only if one is an idiot as it’s pretty clear previous analysis was far to clear in how much this was costing the public.

So, 6 trillion how do we get there from 2001-2019? If one looks at the budget for Overseas Contingency Operations between DoD and State one finds about 2 trillion dollars (2,022). If we look at DoD base budget increases over the same period that we consider war related, such as increased health care costs, higher pay rates for retention, we come up with increases totaling 918 billion give or take a couple of billion. Throw in some medical and disability for 353 billion, 924 billion or so for Homeland Security spending on Prevention/Response to Terrorism and some interest for borrowing at 716 billion, and you get close to 5 trillion. The remaining trillion is an estimated number based on future obligations to our current GWOT veterans who will have those costs as they start to age into the system like our WW2/Korea/Vietnam vets have done to date. That trillion may be higher if the war continues endlessly. As of today we are looking at a little over 3 million GWOT veterans, that number is expected to grow to about 4.3 million veterans according to the VA’s own projections by 2039 and as they age their health and disability care needs will increase.

So what’s been achieved with all that money and all those, to date, dead American troops? Is anyone confident that Afghanistan is a stable, America friendly democracy that we can rely on for future generations? How about Iraq? Are you confident that Iraq is now a stable regional player able to fend off Iran without decades of additional US support? Does anyone feel good about Syria? Or Pakistan? How about all the good we’re bringing to Yemen by supporting our great friends and allies in the Kingdom as they slaughter their way through the country?

Our national debt is almost 22 trillion dollars, our personal debt is 19 trillion dollars we have long since ceased to be a nation concerned with paying its bills. Every person in America owes the nation around 67 thousand dollars for their share of the debt, which amounts to about 180 thousand per taxpayer.

Clearly the cost of war isn’t our only concern, but all of these costs should be a concern to everyone in the nation.

We can argue over the numbers regarding the cost of the war, all day and all year if you like. I’m not going to dispute they’re open to interpretation, but the 22 trillion national debt doesn’t change, the 19 trillion in personal debt doesn’t change and the situation in the Middle East doesn’t change tomorrow because we argue over the finer points of the data collection today. We can even argue over the costs of other programs, but in the end the reality that we spend too much and bring in too little doesn’t change. The Common Defense and the General Welfare are always open to discussion as to their meanings and to what proportion around which we’d like to build our budget. I’m certain we spend too much on all of it, but that’s just me. Others seem content to spend endlessly on the GWOT and also offer “free” healthcare and college. Fiscal conservatives ought to be asking who is going to ultimately pay the tab on these “free” government offerings as well as the cost of wars.

Conservatism isn’t supposed to be blind obedience to the government’s position on an endless, expensive, and currently ineffectual war in the Middle East. It’s supposed to be a challenge to government over reach, to mindless government excess in the pursuit of who knows what ultimate strategic goal. Conservatism is definitely not supposed to be about approving ever larger budgets without consideration of how we pay for those budgets. We used to raise taxes during wars so everyone felt the weight of the war, during Korea the marginal rate went to 92% even Johnson during Vietnam raised the top rates to 77%. Because we’re choosing to finance this endless GWOT on credit there will be no “peace” dividend that the public will see because we’re not asking the public to pay for it now. I wonder why that is, perhaps if we were all forced to pay for it there might be a few more unpleasant questions being asked.

Good conservatives aren’t supposed to be bootlickers supporting everything their government does, they’re supposed to be voices of reason and restraint, and frankly we could use some of those voices today.

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

VoV

Category: Economy, Foreign Policy, Guest Post, Politics