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----- Original Message ----- From: Dwayne Monroe To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2003 3:55 PM Subject: [lbo-talk] Dizzying Dive to Red Ink Poses Stark Choices for Washington
[This is extraordinarily gloomy for a NYTimes article. If accurate, it seems that a recovery would have to possess the strength of the gods to pull the country from the pit that's being dug.]
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Dizzying Dive to Red Ink Poses Stark Choices for Washington By DAVID FIRESTONE
ASHINGTON, Sept. 13 - When President Bush informed the nation last Sunday night that remaining in Iraq next year will cost another $87 billion, many of those who will actually pay that bill were unable to watch. They had already been put to bed by their parents.
Administration officials acknowledged the next day that every dollar of that cost will be borrowed, a loan that economists say will be repaid by the next generation of taxpayers and the generation after that. The $166 billion cost of the work so far in Iraq and Afghanistan, which has stunned many in Washington, will be added to what was already the largest budget deficit the nation has ever known.
With a force that has surprised even critics of the administration, the Iraqi occupation has pushed to the forefront a budget deficit that had previously existed mostly as an abstract red stain on Democratic bar charts. With no extra money available for the foreseeable future, real choices are being illuminated on Capitol Hill - choices between electronic bombs and electrical grids, between low taxes now and lower retirement payments later.