Liberal 'Budget Hawks' or Vultures?
By Joe Mariani
April 25, 2006

Few things are more entertaining than listening to Liberals play "Budget Hawk," their new favorite game. It's like overhearing children playing house, imitating their parents. Well, the way children used to imitate their parents, back when it was normal to have two (one of each), and Daddy went off to work while Mommy stayed home. These days, it might take two children to play a divorced Mommy and Daddy, two more to play their new partners (of whatever sex), and several others to play the various step-siblings and support groups of the various Mommies and Daddies. Is that what Liberals meant by "it takes a village to raise a child?"

But back to the new Budget Hawk game. It's the best way Liberals have come up with to undermine support for the war in Iraq. Realizing that most Americans outside of Hollywood abhor wasteful spending, the anti-war crowd often pretends to be horrified by the amount of money spent by the Federal government on Iraq. "Do you know how much Bush's war in Iraq is costing?" they demand to know. "Hundreds of millions a day!" It's always "Bush's war," though Congress voted to send troops to Iraq, and keeps nailing slabs of pork to every defense-related bill. Still, it's all a pose, a calculated outrage designed to reduce support for the war among more fiscally conservative Americans.

As usual, however, Liberals are just throwing out raw numbers for their shock value. They do the same when they complain that an across-the-board tax cut results in the rich keeping more of their own money than the middle class. Naturally, one percent of $1,000,000 is a lot more money than the same fraction of $50,000, so if everyone's taxes were reduced by the same rate, some people would have less taken away by Uncle Sam than others. Yet we still hear Liberals and their pet Democrats screaming about a "tax cut for the rich," because the actual dollar values are different. The truth can often be found in what they don't say.

To complain that keeping the American military -- or, at least, about ten percent of it -- in Iraq costs X number of dollars per day is to ignore the fact that the military isn't cheap to keep home, either. Troops still have to be paid, fed, clothed, housed and trained; equipment still has to be upgraded, repaired and replaced. Most of the little logistical nightmares that accompany troops in the field follow them wherever they go. When playing the Budget Hawk game, Liberals just sort of skip over that part, wanting you to consider the expense in a vacuum.

All things considered, the war in Iraq really hasn't been very expensive in monetary terms, not when you compare it to previous wars and subsequent rebuilding. And it's hard to put a price tag on changing a part of the world. World War II, for instance, cost America about 130% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) -- almost a third more then the entire wealth creation of the United States during that time. Korea and Vietnam cost approximately 13% and 11%, respectively. The entire monetary cost of the war in Iraq so far is just 2% of the wealth we create every year, according to research done by Robert Whaples, a Wake Forest University professor of economics.

The trick, of course, is that Liberals don't want that money returned to the taxpayers or spent on national defense in other ways. Whenever Liberals play Budget Hawk, you can hear part of the true Democratic election platform. That means pulling out of Iraq regardless of the circumstances, reducing the defense budget, and spending that money on Socialist entitlements designed to make more people more dependent than ever on the Federal government, which translates into Democrat votes. Add impeaching the President and raising taxes to pay for even more entitlement programs, and you pretty much have the whole of it.

At least national defense is a valid expenditure mandated by the Constitution. Bailing out a floundering political party by helping them buy votes wasn't part of the Founding Fathers' vision.

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Joe Mariani is a computer consultant born and raised in New Jersey. He now lives in Pennsylvania, where the gun laws are less restrictive and taxes are lower. Joe always thought of himself as politically neutral until he saw how far left the left had really gone after 9/11. His essays and links to articles are available at http://www.guardianwatchblog.com/

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.