War money tops 10x initial estimate, next budget "balanced" by slashing health funds

[Pontiuth Pilate]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6332555.stm

US President George W Bush has submitted a $2.9 trillion (£1.5 trillion) budget to Congress including almost $700bn in new military spending.

Much of the money is earmarked for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

If Congress did approve the request, the US would have spent $661.9bn on combat in Iraq and Afghanistan since the war began, the administration said.

Meanwhile as you can read in the article, Bush has proposed to pay for this AND cut the deficit, by way of cutting health spending.

Do you share the President's priorities?

 

[Old Spice]

Hmm which should I pick the one that kills people or the one that heals people.

 

[Masquerouge]

Somehow the figures don't add up though. The new budget will add up $700Bn in military spending, yet the US would have spent a total of $661.9Bn on combat in Iraq and Afghanistan if it's approved?

 

[Pyrite]

That depends if we're going to get any more shock and awe esque footage, that totally energizes my evenings spent at home eating stale meat loaf after work.

 

[El_Machinae]

Winning the war will help lower my blood pressure, which means that I won't have to keep taking FDA "approved" statins. Of course, proper medical research could actually help improve upon treatments and preventors of America's number one killer. Heart Disease.

 

[Pyrite]

You could stop eating meat

 

[El_Machinae]

You could stop eating meat

If I stop eating meat, then we'll have more money and natural resources available to us ... why would I do that?

(anyway, I'm just being poetic, I don't actually need to take statins).

 

[puglover]

Money used to support a strong military can protect our soldiers' lives in the long run.

Money used to prop up another weak goverment health program will only feed the bureaucracy.

 

[JollyRoger]

Bush should just make everybody getting money or benefits from the government to collect such money or benefits in Fallujah. Several problems solved at once as everybody from Grandmas on social security to Fortune 500 Executives on corporate welfare would have to fight their way through Fallujah or pull themselves up by their bootstraps.

 

[Hygro]

Money used to support a strong military can protect our soldiers' lives in the long run.

Money used to prop up another weak goverment health program will only feed the bureaucracy.

Hey guess what. In the average industrialized country, the average person gets significantly better medical coverage at half the cost. It's because they don't have republicans getting in the way of a single payer national health care plan. So long as you work as obstructionists, we are stuck with a hybridized, for-profit-and-not-for-good-health, costly, VERY INNEFFICIENT, inneffective for its price medical system.

 

[GinandTonic]

Hey guess what. In the average industrialized country, the average person gets significantly better medical coverage at half the cost. It's because they don't have republicans getting in the way of a single payer national health care plan. So long as you work as obstructionists, we are stuck with a hybridized, for-profit-and-not-for-good-health, costly, VERY INNEFFICIENT, inneffective for its price medical system.

Yup. Most expensive health care system on earth (by a march too) and 37th best outcome.

Gotta hurt. You boys getting robbed.

 

[JollyRoger]

Money used to support a strong military can protect our soldiers' lives in the long run.

Money used to prop up another weak goverment health program will only feed the bureaucracy.

You do realize that a good part of the bloated military budget is going to prop up weak government bureacracies in Iraq, right?

 

[Xanikk999]

Money used to support a strong military can protect our soldiers' lives in the long run.

Money used to prop up another weak goverment health program will only feed the bureaucracy.

And spending money on the hopeless iraq war is like throwing buckets of cash into a bottomless pit.

Its wasted that way...

 

[Narz]

Hmm which should I pick the one that kills people or the one that heals people.

Well technically the medical industry (malpractice, wrongful death, perscription drug related deaths, etc.) kills far more people than the Iraq war. But at least it has good intentions and does a lot of good as well.

Anyone who voted the Iraq war shouldn't be here posting, they should be over there fighting.

 

[puglover]

And spending money on the hopeless iraq war is like throwing buckets of cash into a bottomless pit.

Its wasted that way...

Look, the Iraq War may not yield very good dividends in the future, but we have soldiers over there who are under attack. A well-funded military is more capable to defend itself, and if we can save soldiers' lives, I'm all for Bush's plan.

Anyone who voted the Iraq war shouldn't be here posting, they should be over there fighting.

What does that mean? Anyone who supports the war should be fighting it?

and I'm too young anyway.

 

[JollyRoger]

Anyone who voted the Iraq war shouldn't be here posting, they should be over there fighting.

Those are fightin words here. Easiest way to cause some posters to get their cheerleader panties in a wad.

 

[Pontiuth Pilate]

Money used to prop up another weak goverment health program will only feed the bureaucracy.

Yeah, tell that to the people who don't have health coverage. Ye Olde Ond Venerable Bureaucracy Excuse will surely work on them.

 

[Kraznaya]

What does that mean? Anyone who supports the war should be fighting it?

and I'm too young anyway.

Yup. If you believe a cause is just enough that you yourself will fight for it with your physical self; if you can't too bad, you're not making sacrifices to meet your own ends.

 

[amadeus]

Yeah, tell that to the people who don't have health coverage.

You mean people like me?


(Hey! 17,777 posts!)

 

[Shylock]

Money used to support a strong military can protect our soldiers' lives in the long run.

Money used to prop up another weak goverment health program will only feed the bureaucracy.

I have news for you. The military is a bureaucracy too.

For every soldier you see toting a gun there are 5 or so bureaucrats slowing him down.