McCain Myth Buster: John McCain and the Cost of the War in Iraq
March 17, 2008
Pandering to the right wing of his Party, John McCain has said he would make Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy permanent and believes that earmark reform is the key to balancing the budget.
But while claiming to be a fiscal conservative, McCain at the same time calls for a 100 year war in Iraq, a proposition that would come at a huge economic cost to America. A recent CBO study showed that a third Bush term of tax cuts for the wealthy and a never-ending war in Iraq would cost America TRILLIONS of dollars in new spending. And those earmarks McCain talks about as the key to balancing the budget cost $16.8 billion dollars last year while the war in Iraq is now costing America $12 billion a month--in fact cutting all of last year's earmarks would pay for less than six weeks in Iraq. Yet McCain has no plan for how to pay for all this new spending. [http://budget.senate.gov/democratic/documents/2008/cbojanupdatefactsheet2008.pdf; Wall Street Journal, 3/14/08; AP, 3/10/08]
That sure doesn't sound like straight talk. John McCain's rhetoric might sound good to fiscal conservatives, but the math just doesn't add up.
Myth: John McCain and Spending
2008: McCain Would Spend 'a Hundred Years' or a 'Million Years' in Iraq. McCain interrupted a voter during a townhall meeting in New Hampshire telling him we could spend "maybe a hundred" years in Iraq and "that would be fine with me." After the townhall meeting, he told a reporter "that U.S. troops could be in Iraq for 'a thousand years' or 'a million years,' as far as he was concerned." [McCain Derry, NH townhall meeting, 1/3/08; motherjones.com , 1/3/08]
Cost of "Four More Years" Placed At $6.3 TRILLION. A CBO report called "January Budget and Economic Outlook" showed continued deterioration in the budget outlook with the projected 2008 deficit growing to $219 billion. But as bad as the budget situation has become under the current Republican Administration, continuation of the Republican policies by any of the Republicans on stage tonight will only make things worse. The majority staff of the Senate Budget Committee estimates that funding Republican priorities like making the Bush tax cuts permanent and funding ongoing - and perhaps permanent - operations in Iraq will add $6.3 trillion to the CBO's already dismal ten-year predictions. [http://budget.senate.gov/democratic/documents/2008/cbojanupdatefactsheet2008.pdf ]
Annual Cost of Earmarks Equal to Six Weeks in Iraq. "In fiscal 2008, there were 11,737 appropriation earmarks totaling $16.8 billion." [Wall Street Journal, 3/14/08] "In 2008, its sixth year, the war will cost approximately $12 billion a month, triple the 'burn' rate of its earliest years, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and co-author Linda J. Bilmes report in a new book." [AP, 3/10/08]
After casting himself as a "Maverick" in 2000, the new John McCain is walking in lockstep with President Bush, pandering to the right wing of the Republican Party, and embracing the ideology he once denounced. On the campaign trail McCain has callously abandoned many of his previously held positions, even contradicted himself, in a blatant attempt to remake himself into a candidate Republicans can accept in 2008. So just who is the real John McCain? The Democratic National Committee will present a daily fact aimed at exposing the man behind the myth.
