If you believe the Obama administration (and I doubt there is a person on the planet not in custodial care who actually does), ObamaCare will, if enacted, save the government $132 billion over the next 10 years. In the world ordinary citizens live in, one of mortgage payments and tuition bills, that sounds like a lot of money, more than the net worth of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett combined.
In the world of Washington, however, it’s chump change, an average of $13.2 billion a year, when the government will spend $3.7 trillion this year alone. Indeed, as Hotair points out, $132 billion is equal to only 59 percent of the deficit that the federal government racked up just in the month of February 2010, when the government spent $220.9 billion more than it took in, the highest monthly shortfall in history.
As Michael Barone and others have noted, Nancy Pelosi seems to be having increasing trouble rounding up votes to jam ObamaCare through the House. The fact that it would be a political suicide pact for Democratic congressmen is surely the speaker’s biggest problem. But that it would be a fiscal suicide pact for the federal government might be an increasing factor. Only in Washington, after all, do people have trouble understanding what “we can’t afford it” means.
“All three deserve our gratitude and respect for having saved Iraq from descending into civil war and unending grief, and for having dealt al Qaeda a blow from which it might not recover.”
Amen to that, Peter and Jennifer.
War is peace, and victory is defeat.
Does anyone else remember those political billboards from the 1976 campaign, the ones that read “1984 is only eight years away”?
In terms of the ascent of Newspeak, 1984 is well and truly 24 years behind us.
Iraq would hopefully see the end of the tunnel.
The “mishandling” of the Iraq occupation is a conclusion based on second guesses. There existed no theorem on occupation, adhering to the deductive consequences of which could have ensured success. There was and is no correct theory because this, the armed overthrow of a Mideast totalitarian dictatorship, has never happened before.
Every important criticism of the way the occupation was handled, is an exercise in counter-factual expanation, i.e., of predicting the past. Take as an example, the so-called disaster of Brenner’s dismantling of the Iraqi army. With Saddam and his sons at large in May, 2003, a largely Sunni officer corps, and a hundred thousand Sunnsi in the ranks, it is just not plain as paint that leaving such a force in the field was the correct course to follow.
Similary, the decision to mediate sovereignty with the Coalition Provisional Authority rather than installing a sovereign Iraqi government at the outset is an exewrcise in question begging. THe whole question, which allegedly fueled the insurgency, was the legitimacy of any government that the US had a substantial role in constituting. Arguably, the exact same difficulties would have confronted any such Iraqi government as confronted Bremer. I say arguably because that brings me back to my original point: a war and its aftermath is not a geometric theorem whose consequences unfold predictably. It is a supremely Inductive endeavor, with the correct course revealing itself, as it were, as events transpire, with contingency upon contingency upon contingency altering the battlespace on a more or less continual basis.
Feith’s book also belies the claim that there was no prewar planning. THere was aton of it, at least by the Defense Department. The problem was and is, pace Douglas Feith, that the middle-term future envisaged by the Pentagon is essentially what actually happened under Bremer for three years: the US will stand down as the Iraqis stand up. To say that that has been a challenge is the understatement of the year.
Finally, it is a mistake to look upon the period 2003 through 2006 as some vast squandered opportunity. Writing a constitution, ratifying it, and electing a government within that time frame were events of immeasurable importance for Iraq and US Middle East policy. As time passes those achievements will surpass all others in importance.
I agree completely. Bush deserves credit for his unwillingness to quit; Petreaus and Crocker deserve credit for formulating a winning strategy; and Odierno and the troops deserve accolades for executing that strategy. Of course, the Iraqis-the leadership, the ISF and the people-deserve the lion’s share of the credit for stepping up and ensuring that America’s sacrifice is not in vain.
The conflict is in doubt. We are winning now, but our enemies have not given up. Look for a resurgence in violence and provocation if Obama is elected as our enemies test his will to fight and prevail (they will not bother to test McCain because they know what the response will be.)
“(I)t is now plausible to argue that it will be, on balance, a net plus.” – What weasel words; have the courage of your convictions! If properly followed up, our involvement in Iraq will be a world-historical transformative event on the scale of the defeat of Napoleon, victory in World War II, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. If the liberal order can be successfully implanted in the Middle East, it will in time (decades) change the lives of a quarter-billion people dramatically for the better, ameliorate the greatest source of instability in the world economy, and resolve one of the most serious existing challenges to our way of life (vide Mark Steyn; Russia and China being the others).
A lot less than that would still be worth the blood and treasure. It is just a matter of keeping our nerve.
Joe, Marty and Mahon, I couldn’t agree more! The Iraq war, like all wars, was a gamble, but one that offered great rewards for the people of Iraq, the Middle East, Europe and us. Once we made that gamble, it was vital that we not lose sight of the rewards–many of which have already begun.
It is sad that most of our political calculations are made with the expectation that very little success can ever be expected from our country’s projects. In that respect even most conservative pundits follow the liberal Zeitgeist.