Economic costs

One gets very tired of pointing out to idiots lefties that it is not the military establishment or even the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that have created the appalling deficit we face and shall go on facing while the Boy-King and his Merry Men and Women continue to prat around but the welfare establishment. The amount wasted in the NHS and spent on a completely useless educational system would have bought us several large victorious wars. (Well, OK, maybe not victorious but large, anyway.)

The same applies to the United States where Democrats, facing with increasing worry the mid-term elections, will be talking a great deal about the problems Bush left behind. In particular they will emphasise the economic costs of the war in Iraq (not Afghanistan as that is now "owned" by Obama's administration).

Well, here is a little-known fact that deserves a great deal of publicity: Obama's failed stimulus programme already costs more than the war and will cost considerably more.

Mark Tapscott writes in the Washington Examiner:

* Obama's stimulus, passed in his first month in office, will cost more than the entire Iraq War -- more than $100 billion (15%) more.
* Just the first two years of Obama's stimulus cost more than the entire cost of the Iraq War under President Bush, or six years of that war.
* Iraq War spending accounted for just 3.2% of all federal spending while it lasted.
* Iraq War spending was not even one quarter of what we spent on Medicare in the same time frame.
* Iraq War spending was not even 15% of the total deficit spending in that time frame. The cumulative deficit, 2003-2010, would have been four-point-something trillion dollars with or without the Iraq War.
* The Iraq War accounts for less than 8% of the federal debt held by the public at the end of 2010 ($9.031 trillion).
* During Bush's Iraq years, 2003-2008, the federal government spent more on education that it did on the Iraq War. (State and local governments spent about ten times more.)

Well, go figure.