Shouldn't the question be: How does Hillary plan to pay for endless war?

[HooptieWagon]

Paying for education and healthcare is simple if we get our priorities in order.

[Kalidurga]

1. War is good now. Health care and education for all is bad.

I think you missed the memo.

[daleanime]

11. And it's a good thing that I did, since anyone trying to deliver the memo....

would receive an education on the nature of war and be in need of health care.

[intrepidity]

2. Here here

the unspoken truth of where all our money goes and why we can't have nice things.

[TCJ70]

3. Priorities is what this election...

...in general is really about. It's fine to say that a president needs can't be one dimensional, but our domestic needs far outweigh our foreign policy wants...

[tk2kewl]

7. priorities

https://www.nationalpriorities.org/cost-of/

Total Cost of Wars Since 2001 $1,670,737,598,772

Every hour, taxpayers in the United States are paying
$8.36 million for Total Cost of Wars Since 2001.

[passiveporcupine]

19. What does the one represent?

a gazillion?

[Human101948]

50. that's 1.6 trillion dollars...

I think that's a low ball estimate.

[Enthusiast]

53. Certainly low ball.

[passiveporcupine]

57. I left out the hundreds and thought it was a quadrillion

my bad.

[Human101948]

58. Probably would be if you added in all the black ops...

All the crap that doesn't show up in the budget.

Seven years ago, President Obama took over the White House with a promise to end what he called the “abuse of supplemental budgets” that were used to to not only fund U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, but a variety of other efforts that had little to do with them. But as the president moves into his last year in office, a new reality has set in: those controversial funds still exist, and likely will remain under whoever replaces Obama in the White House next year.

The Pentagon’s proposed budget for fiscal 2017 includes both a $523.9 billion base budget and $58.8 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) funding. The use of OCO funding has been derided by critics, including the Project on Government Oversight, as a “slush fund” for the Pentagon, but in 2017 it again includes billions of dollars for new equipment.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2016/02/11/obamas-tenure-set-to-close-by-spending-59-billion-through-pentagon-slush-fund/

[Dustlawyer]

4. A complete audit of the Pentagon who admits to losing trillions of dollars would probably show that

at least half of the budget is waste, fraud, and abuse. We could fully fund public education and the whole social safety net with what they blow every year.

[freebrew]

33. Waste, fraud, abuse...OR

a nifty way to fund the shadow government that PBO has had to work for.

Obama's outlook changed after he got into office. Maybe it was a ruse all along, but I really didn't think he was THAT much of a corporatist during his campaign. He either snowed us all or he had a meeting with the REAL government folks.

Remember: $9Billion missing from Iraq. $1000 toilets. $900 hammers.

I don't believe this was simple over-charging. Too much $$$ for that.

[eridani]

62. Remember where a civilian president gets his info about external threats

Unfortunately, form the very people who profit from war.

[GoneFishin]

77. There's no doubt that is a reality. We got a teeny tiny glimpse when the Ollie North drug running

scam came to light. Laws and morals are for little people.

[nichomachus]

5. Empty your pockets. Kiss your future goodbye. Kiss your kids' future goodbye.

There, that should satisfy her bloodlust.

[glinda]

69. Yes....more from us. Until we have nothing and drop dead.

[Smarmie Doofus]

6. Clinton, Rubio, Cruz, Bush , etc and their "pie in the sky" promises.

Good question. I have a feeling that it *won't* be by increasing taxes on the people funding them.

So that leaves......


Hmmmmmmmmm.......

[onecaliberal]

8. The same people who always pay.... It damn sure isn't the corporations.

And not just in terms of money either.

[libtodeath]

9. K&R

X1000

[hifiguy]

10. One would think, wouldn't one?

But there's a time tested method for obtaining the money for war - extort it from the peasantry at the point of a sword. The aristocratic classes, however, are not required to pay.

[truedelphi]

12. And when the cost of a single prisoner in a prison is over $ 30 K a yr,

How is it that people are freaked out about paying for people to have free tuition at state schools?

You can attend a damn decent university for 30 K a year, but we are sending people to prison for minor offenses - even including the offense of not having the wherewithal to pay the ever increasing cost of having to re-imburse the citing city or town for the issuance of your arrest papers.

[Press Virginia]

13. you haven't heard?

she's a progressive that gets things done.

that's it. game over

[MisterP]

31. "whatever you want, I'm for"

[Press Virginia]

79. Free college for some

Tiny American flags for others

[brooklynite]

14. She doesn't support endless war, so it's a pointless question

But you knew that, right?

[HooptieWagon]

15. Last I saw there still wars in Iraq, Libya, and Syria she supported.

[Ferd Berfel]

25. and ther is some unpleasentness in Africa that is already out of hand

and will require....?....more war?

[brooklynite]

63. Are you under the impression that President Sanders will immediately withdraw troops from the ME?

[stevenleser]

61. Yep. Still not an answer for Bernie's wild financial projections. nt

[Fumesucker]

74. I proudly stand with Steven Leser v2.0.08, that dude was a keen judge of character

[Lorien]

65. Oh yes she DOES!

http://www.globalresearch.ca/hillary-clinton-if-im-president-we-will-attack-iran/5460484

[Peace Patriot]

16. OH, YES! FERVENTLY, WONDROUSLY YES!

That is the question! One of the best posts I've ever seen on DU!

[Ferd Berfel]

17. Damn good point

[CharlotteVale]

18. Definitely. I'd expect Catfood Commission II among other atrocities.

[SoapBox]

20. Thank you for asking!

Hill? Hill? Oh Hill?!?

*crickets*

[WillyT]

21. + 1,000,000,000 What You Said !!!

[UglyGreed]

22. We got plenty of cash for war

don't be silly now Hooptie!!!!

[Ferd Berfel]

23. Other Questions for HIllary

How will you pay for the next wall street bailout since you don't believe they are too big to fail?

How will you pay for the Americans who will loose their jobs because of NAFTA, CAFTA and TPP?

How will you be able to fund the country after TPP strips away the governments ability to collect taxes?

How will you pay for the Government when the Republicans shut it down completely just to spite you.?

etc etc

[VulgarPoet]

24. I can't vote for her.

Not unless she definitively states she will not support TPP;
Not unless she definitively states that she will not seek further war in the Middle East;
Not unless she walks back what she said about "coming under sniper fire";
Not unless she releases the secret transcripts of her chats with the banking elites that fucked over America once;
Not unless she re-aligns herself with what it means to be left and abandons the dirty political games, triangulation, and barely purple closer to red politics that the Clinton name has come to be associated with.

Because right now? It's real fuckin' hard to tell where she stands, when Libya, when Syria, when Iraq, when Yemen are still literally on fire. With her support. When she can't tell the people what it was she said to Goldman Sachs to get money. When she has done nothing to debunk the myth of being a chameleon of political expedience.

Because honestly? Obama's second re-election, I felt hope. I did everything that I'd have expected a democrat to have done where elections and campaigning were concerned. And nothing came of it. I switched my affiliation to Independent soon after, and resolved that I would wait for someone I could believe, especially when more of my skin is in the game being in the military.

Senator Sanders is the first time I've felt hope in a long time. And what with what the Clintons have done, the past few weeks? That just justifies my prior nihilism.

[Ferd Berfel]

26. Problem is

Would you believe her even if she crosses her heart and hopes to die?

[hifiguy]

35. If I shook hands with her, I would

carefully count my fingers afterwards.

[debunction.junction]

54. I take no pleasure in saying "HELL NO!"

I did not leave Hillary, she left me (us). Sad, really sad. But, that is what money and power does. It corrupts the hearts and minds of those who succumb to it. Anyone who thinks that what they have to say is worth $200,000 an hour, and at the same time believes that the average worker is not worth $15 an hour is delusional in their own grandeur.

[Samantha]

27. We know the answer to this one, HooptieWagon

Cut social security, medicare, disability and any other social program that might be vulnerable.

oh, cut Federal pensions

Sam

[Divernan]

42. She won't CUT Soc. Sec.; she'll privatize it

Hill'$ Wall Street/banker BFFs jone$ing to privatize social security

This will be Job One for a Hillary Clinton administration. The penultimate quid for those millions in pro quos they have paid to her as a candidate, paid her as a private citizen for her speeches, and paid the Clinton crime family, oops, I mean Clinton Family Foundation. Have no doubt in your minds - the necessary legislation has already been drafted and co-sponsors lined up by banking/Wall Street lobbyists, awaiting the possibility of a Clinton administration, i.e., a president who will not veto it.

It's the most lucrative remaining venue for transferring wealth upward. Wall Street goes orgasmic at the prospect of privatizing tens of millions of individual social security accounts!
As one banker explained it to me, every time an adjustment/change would be made to how the funds are invested - say increasing the percentage invested in one kind of bond versus another, a fee would be charged to every single social security recipient.

With over 50 million collecting SS and SSI, not to mention the tens of millions of accounts of those actively contributing to SS, at a dollar each (for the sake of argument) per investment tweak, times several tweaks/adjustments/changes per month? My god how the money rolls upward! It will be the last great tsunami of wealth transfer to the One Percent. And it will profit them as long as social security exists. We've already achieved permanent war status; social security privatization means permanent rip-off of workers status.

Because what do we average folks have? Like so very many, I lost nearly all of my retirement savings in the 2008 debacle. We were left with our mortgages on our homes and our social security accounts.
Along came CDOs and the mortgage bubble, and having been bailed out once, Wall Street is now pushing "bespoke tranch opportunities." (See the film, The Big Short) Now the only low-hanging fruits left are our social security savings.

Social Security updates its statistics every month in the Monthly Statistical Snapshot, although the updated figures are not as precise as the numbers published in the Annual Statistical Supplement. As of December 2012, according to the Snapshot, the retirement rolls had reached approximately 39,613,000, with an average benefit of $1,193.94. Disability beneficiaries had reached approximately 10,889,000, with an average benefit of $1,130.34.

[SheilaT]

44. The scary thing about privatizing Social Security

is that there are always those who support it. Too many people say things like: "It's MY money. I should decide what to do with it." First off, that shows a profound lack of understanding of of how the system actually works. And then there are the optimistic assumptions of stock market returns.

We do need to shore up SS, mainly by raising the cap or perhaps eliminating it entirely.

[Enthusiast]

55. Huge +1! The righties have been pushing that "It's MY money. I should decide what to do with it."

They have been pushing that for a long while.

[eridani]

64. I don't think she'll go along with privatization. She did repeat a Pete Peterson--

--dogwhistle during the first debate, though. Something to the effect of how we need to help the SocSec beneficiaries with the lowest incomes. Straight from the 2010 Catfood Commission. What it means is that SocSec gets cut, but that most or all of the cuts would be put back for the lowest quintile.

[MisterP]

80. the only defense her flacks say is "the Republicans hate SS! the Democrats created it!"

when deed and action are so far apart all they have is rhetoric

[artyteacher]

28. endless war is a GOP thing.

Not a Democratic thing. No, she doesn't want endless war. Don't let your ignorant hate blind you.

[PaulaFarrell]

45. actually

Kennedy/Johnson - Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia
Carter - Afghanistan
Clinton - Iraq(bombing campaign), Balkans
Obama - Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen

There's more I know, that's just off the top of my head

[GummyBearz]

46. The biggest one...

FDR and truman - WW2

Of course that was actually a necessary war... but still a war

[Art_from_Ark]

51. Laos and Cambodia were under Nixon-- he started the bombing campaign 2 months after taking office

Kennedy was planning to withdraw American military advisors from Vietnam just before his assassination.

Carter never invaded Afghanistan. It was the Soviet Union that invaded Afghanistan during Carter's term.

[PaulaFarrell]

66. carter got us involved in Afghanistan

Sad but true. In every other way I respect him but he is the one who started supporting the muhajadin.

We also bombed Laos in the sixties. Not sure about Cambodia.

[Art_from_Ark]

70. The Laos and Cambodia campaigns were started at the same time

Late March 1969-- under Nixon.

Carter was supporting the Mujahideen because he was listening to that idiot Cold Warrior Zbigniew Brzezinski. But we didn't get directly involved in Afghanistan under Carter. But even if Carter hadn't gotten involved with the Mujahideen, Reagan would have.

[PaulaFarrell]

71. check out operation barrel roll 1964

Last edited Fri Feb 19, 2016, 06:09 AM - Edit history (1)

We were bombing in the sixties though hiding behind the Laotian air force.



I'm sure Reagan would have got involved I'm Afghanistan - my point is that dems are warmongers too when it suits them.

[artyteacher]

59. those weren't endless.

Vietnam was closest to that. It kinda started under Eisenhower though, but I'll grant you lbj escalates with a lie, BUT the dems tried to stop it. Nixon actually committed treason in interfering with the peace talks in 1968 and waited four years to end the war.

[PaulaFarrell]

68. the point is that we are always at war

Even under dems. It's the American way.

[TIME TO PANIC]

29. K & R!

[Cheese Sandwich]

30. Yes. How much did the Iraq War cost? How much for Syria and the refugees?

It's about time we raised this question.

Some of this stuff there is no way to put a price on it.

[I hate liars]

32. Absolutely spot-on

If only we could get our invertebrate 4th estate to suck it up and question the status quo once in a while.

[JohnnyRingo]

34. No, that shouldn't be the question.

To begin with, Hillary Clinton has not declared "endless war" on anyone, nor is there precedent to such a claim.

Such a scenario only exists in the minds of those who want her gone, either so Bernie can assume the nomination or to clear the way for a weak Republican candidate to win the White House, depending upon one's motives.

[hifiguy]

38. Libya, Syria, iSIS, Honduras,

and she's warming up for Iran and dog knows where else.

[JohnnyRingo]

60. When Bernie vows to never deploy troops...

... then you'll have something that would make him a unique president. Such a ridiculous statement would also disqualify him for the job in the eyes of the voters.

The nonsense in this slime post completely discounts her duty as the nations chief diplomat. As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton did more to defuse potential war situations than her opponent ever will.

Frankly, as a woman candidate, Hillary has to come off as a little more tough than her male counterparts to avoid opposition that would portray her as a little girl who would run away crying at the first sign of confrontation. How she'd actually govern would likely be more measured since she's already well acquainted with the world's leaders. Something no other candidate on either side can claim.

[olddots]

36. its hard not to feel like Spock

[sarge43]

37. Getting our priorities in order could start here.

http://www.cnbc.com/2014/07/31/how-dods-15-trillion-f-35-broke-the-air-force.html

Yeah, that's right. 15 trillion dollars.

[valerief]

39. Through endless taxation on the 99%, of course. War makes the .01% richer. nt

[SHRED]

40. War is free

What are you a communist?

[democrank]

41. She could pay for the war

with a few speeches.

[Dont call me Shirley]

43. Time to end all war.

[Jack Rabbit]

47. Absolutely. I've never doubted that Bernie's agenda is possible for that reason.

The reasons given for wars in the Middle East are all phony, whether they are provided by somebody named Bush or somebody named Clinton. The first thing we need to do is commit to supplementing and the supplanting fossil fuels with renewable energy. The US government doesn't need to go to war for oil and then tell us peons that its for liberty and justice. Any American who knows what's good for him will refuse to fight in such a war. I don't care what becomes of ExxonMobil, Shell or any other entity of organized crime. They had their chance to diversify, invest in and promote wind and solar power, but instead they squandered their time promoting the global-warming-is-a-hoax hoax. Fuck Rex Tillerson. Let him die cold, hungry, broker and alone.

[ValasHune]

48. another question

With poll after poll showing Clinton losing to Trump... and now even Kasich.......wow. While Bernie wins by a ton against all of them isn't it time to start supporting Sanders as the most electable candidate ? Time after time...Bernie has shown that he is the standard the democratic party is made of and should continue to emulate no matter what happens.

[Nyan]

49. Yep. If you wanna get an endless war,

No-fly zone in Syria will do it.

[AgingAmerican]

52. She will just borrow trillions

That's how they do it

[Enthusiast]

56. Kicked and recommended!

[cascadiance]

67. Or how does she pay for the added unemployment and reduced income tax revenue...

for the increased number of Americans put out of work for the guest worker programs like H-1B and H-2b she supports, and the free trade programs like TPP that you know that she will support once she gets elected the same way Obama did!

Increased DEFICITS and more unemployed college students swimming in debt!!!

[Live and Learn]

72. She knows how to pay for them by cutting benefits that we paid for for us and giving more to CEO's.

I think that is what she promised in her transcripts that she won't release.

[leveymg]

73. The old-fashioned way - export more weapons.

Start more wars to please wealthy client states. It's a perpetual motion machine. Nice we still have some stuff the world wants.

[Uncle Joe]

75. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, HooptieWagon.

[JustAnotherGen]

76. It's a good question

To hammer at the Republicans in November. If it is Kasich - we can refine it to ask, "how you going to pay for this American Christian Jihad John?"

[merrily]

78. I wish I could recommend this a few thousand times. Heck, a few trillion.

[liberal_at_heart]

81. K&R.