The headline is in quotes because I stole it from Jeanne Sahadi’s article on CNN Money.  I read the first few paragraphs of the article and almost became enraged at how blind the author was to write such crap.  As I continued down the page though her point became more and more fundamentally true.  The headline is still politically incorrect, but it got me to read it and it got you to read this.

I’ll start by saying I’m anti-war.  Forget the money stuff, we have Americans dying overseas in a useless battle reminiscent of Vietnam.  They need to come home.  Jeanne might agree with me there, but her point is more fiscally oriented.

Both Obama and McCain have stated they would use the money from the war to fund their ambitious projects if elected, ignore for the moment their differences in withdrawal.  They both say the money from the war can be used elsewhere.

Its just too bad that ending our spending in Iraq won’t fund other projects.  Iraq has been funded entirely by debt.  In essence, all the money we’ve spent over there was “created”.  Ending the war would end the creation of this money, Obo and Macky can’t use this debt to fund their projects.

McCain’s campaign is quoted as saying:

“the McCain administration would reserve all savings from victory in the Iraq and Afghanistan operations … for reducing the deficit. Since all their costs were financed with deficit spending, all their savings must go to deficit reduction.”

Again ignoring the victory comments, this sounds great!  Only, an end to the war would only decrease the amount we’re borrowing.  A good measure, but not nearly the picture McCain has painted.  Think of it like going from smoking 2 packs a day, to 2 1/2, and now back down to 2.

Obama is no better on these grounds, in fact I’d say he’s worse.  Whereas McCain would decrease the borrowing, an end for Obama would mean he can borrow the money to fund his programs.  Universal healthcare and tax cuts for the middle class, two big topics for the election, would all just be hot air since they would be funded by fake money.

I’m really disappointed both of these boys have missed the point about borrowing money.  One doesn’t understand where the money comes from, the other just wants to shift the intense borrowing to other programs.  Click through to read Sahadi’s article, its really informative and she makes other points I did not mention.  Remember, for the sake of argument, I ignored the candidates’ varying timetables on an end to the war.

Read

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