It's going to cost what it's going to cost. Now, watch this swing.
Topic: Bush Administraiton

In election news, the Daniel Cooney for the AP writes that, “Millions of Afghans defied attacks and a Taliban boycott call to vote for a new parliament, yesterday.”

I think, he just replaced “Iraqis” with “Afghans” and “Taliban” with “insurgents” and filed his report. It’s the same old BS from last April’s elections in Iraq. “Officials hailed the election as a major success.” Well, what a surprise! Even though turnout appeared to be lower than the presidential elections, US ambassador Ronald Neumann thought the whole affair a “great success.” Low turn out, shmlow turn out, “ says ambassador Neumann; “In America, only half of the people vote.” See, the less they come out to vote, the more like us they become.

The Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan estimates a 30 to 35% turnout, compared to 75% for the last elections, so they’re right on their way.

Now, presumably, the Taliban will see this as a great defeat and lay down their arms, just like the Iraqi insurgency did. Former warlords and newly rich druglords, thanks to us, who bought and threatened their way into office will start their new lives as democratic leaders who care only for the democratic aspirations of their constituents. George W. was right nation building does work!

With all this nation building going on around the world and the rebuilding on the Gulf Coast, one might wonder how we’re going to pay for all of this. W. says don’t worry be happy. “You bet its going to cost money. But I’m confident we can handle our other priorities. It’s going to cost whatever it costs.”

He sounds like one of those people who doesn’t really have any intention of paying for anything. ‘By the time this bill comes due, I’ll be looking at the picture books in my library.’

Congress, on the other hand, actually writes the checks, so they’re a little more worried. Senator Tom “Sorry-I-sterilized-you-by-accident” Coburn says its “inexcusable” that Bush and the congress haven’t even made an “effort to find at least some offsets to this new spending.” By offsets, he means social spending cuts.

According to Al Hubbard, Bush’s economic wiz, the costs for this are coming from “the American Taxpayer,” but that, "this in no way will adversely impact his commitment to cut the deficit in half by 2009.” Bush says we have to “maintain economic growth and we should not raise taxes.” NO, don’t raise taxes; the right thing to do is make sure the “costs are wisely spent.”

Yeah, that makes sense, fiscally speaking. We’ll just cut all that fat out of the federal budget, like Social Security and Medicare, and $400 billion for the next four years in Iraq and the estimated $200 billion for Katrina will just magically appear. (This is on top of the $333 billion of debt we’ve rung up this year alone.) W. plans to kill two birds with one stone: don’t burden the rich with onerous taxes and use the credit card to make sure Halliburton and Bechtel keep those balance sheets in the black.

Is there anyone in Washington that has any clue about managing finances? My God, if most people went around buying Humvees and Beverly Hill mansions on credit cards and the banks just provided endless credit no matter how crazy the spending was, we’d be in real trouble.

Two little notes from the WSJ that caught my eye. Louisiana representative Richard Baker of Baton Rouge was overheard as saying, “we finally cleaned up the public housing in New Orleans. We couldn’t do it, but God did.” Later, Baker said he didn’t intend to be flippant he had just wanted to improve public housing.

The Army isn’t only helping out with cutting down trees and providing logistical assistance to Katrina victims. They also sent recruiters to the Astrodome to help out with “jobs” in the military. Army spokesman Douglass Smith says, “ Our intent is to approach the evacuees at the right time for them.” How thoughtful. Its not like the military is having any problems filling their ranks or anything, so they certainly wouldn’t take advantage of already desperately poor people have just lost what little they did have by offering them three squares and housing for a little trip to Iraq, now would they?