War to the max

Have you checked your credit score lately? I usually
check mine about twice a year, and discrepancies are
somewhat common. I’ve seen some little stuff (an old
hospital bill-that can wait), and I’ve seen some big stuff
(the Internal Revenue Service-whoa, that can’t be me).
What I had yet to see – until now – was my share of a
trillion-dollar war.

The Bush administration continues to tell the American
people we are going to reap the benefits of our continued
operations in Iraq-regardless of the Defense Department
noting 30,000 injuries and more than 4,000 casualties, the
escalation of conflicts between Sunni and Shiite insurgents,
no weapons of mass destruction (nope, no nukes) found
and insufficient evidence of a credible threat to national
interests (no Yellow-cake uranium bought in Nigeria,
either). And amid all the administration’s talking, there has
been no mention of how we will pay for everything.

After Sept. 11, the country was in a malaise, and
Americans felt Bush empathized with them. Bush traveled
to New York’s ground zero, put on a hard hat and gave a
speech. It was all very touching. The political capital Bush
developed was immense, and – in 2003 – he decided to
do a little shopping.

Congress passed a joint resolution authorizing “the use
of force against terrorists” and appropriated the necessary
funds to make this action possible. The administration
estimated the war would cost $50 billion, and Iraqis
would pay their share of reconstruction costs by using
oil revenues.

I certainly wanted to believe the administration. This
was why I felt confident enough in Bush to vote for him in
2004. Unfortunately, five years after the beginning of the
War in Iraq, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, America has spent
about $845 billion on the war. Iraqis
have yet to contribute any significant
amount of funds, and my generation
disproportionately will bear the brunt
of the costs.

During Bill Clinton’s administration,
Joseph Stiglitz was former
chairman of the Council of Economic
Advisers, the group responsible for the
president’s economic policy. Stiglitz
estimated the cost of operations will
total $3 trillion. Worse yet, Stiglitz
calls this a low estimate.

Undoubtedly, this debt will not be a
problem for Bush, who exits office in
less than a year, or – more specifically
– for his generation. The baby-boomer
generation – which includes my
parents and other nice folks – will
not be asked to foot the bill for this
debt. In 20 years, the last wave of baby
boomers will reach retirement age, yet
this debt will still exist. If U.S. Sen.
John McCain has his way, we’ll still
be in Iraq, too.

While baby boomers received tax
cuts during the past seven years, the
national debt continued to increase at
a phenomenal rate.

The U.S. Treasury notes that U.S.
debt rose from $2 trillion in 2001,
when Bush took office, to more than $9
trillion today. According to the Federal
Reserve System, the U.S. spent nearly
$430 billion on interest payments this
past year alone. And the interest will
continue to rise.

My generation, named the “Millenials”
generation by authors Neil Howe
and William Strauss, will be paying
for this war and its to-be-determined
aftermath. We in this generation will
pay for the troops who have become
stationed permanently in Iraq “securing
democracy” for the future; we will
pay for the physical rehabilitation
and mental-health care of Iraq War
veterans, who return home as a shell
of their former selves; we will pay
for the increased interest rates of the
war debt and the national debt as a
whole.

We will pay the staggering costs
incurred by having a less-educated,
less-skilled and less-healthy citizenry
that has developed because of a lack of
educational parity among our youth.
This inequality has been exacerbated
by an endemic bureaucratic mismanagement
that chronically underfunds
our public-school system and by an
overburdened health-care system that
disproportionately disenfranchises
the poor.

No longer should neoconservatives
and “lame ducks” habituating Washington,
D.C., solely determine how
much longer this war should last.
If my generation is going to foot
the bill, then we deserve to be heard,
too.

Next time Bush asks Congress to
swipe our charge card yet again, I yearn
to hear: “Sorry, Mr. President-it’s
been declined.”