The 9/11 ‘Overreaction’? Nonsense

[Mister D]

Snip

Perhaps, says the new conventional wisdom, but these exertions have bankrupted the country and led to our current mood of despair and decline.

Rubbish. The total costs of “the two wars” is $1.3 trillion. That’s less than one eleventh of the national debt, less than one year of Obama deficit spending. During the golden Eisenhower 1950s of robust economic growth averaging 5 percent annually, defense spending was 11 percent of GDP and 60 percent of the federal budget. Today, defense spending is 5 percent of GDP and 20 percent of the budget. So much for imperial overstretch.

Yes, we are approaching bankruptcy. But this has as much to do with the War on Terror as do sunspots. Looming insolvency comes not from our shrinking defense budget but from the explosion of entitlements. They devour nearly half the federal budget.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...es-krauthammer

[Conley]

You can't just poo poo 1.3T away no matter how you spin it though.

It was the combination of increased spending plus massive tax cuts that led to the deficit. Furthermore just looking at these numbers in isolation wrt to GDP and current budget ignores the deficit that had already been rung up before Bush even came into office. We also don't have the potential for growth we had in the 50s.