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- Muzikal203's diary :: ::
DeMint: Let's not say it's a stimulus when it's a government spending plan. All of the things, the needs in our society, education, these are things we debate every year.
Frank: Spending can be stimulus. I don't understand.
DeMint: It's the largest spending bill in history and we're trying to call it a stimulus.
Frank: The largest spending bill in history is going to turn out to be the one in Iraq. If we're going to talk about spending, I have a problem when we leave out that extraordinary expensive, damaging war in Iraq, which has caused much more harm than good in my judgment. I don't understand from my conservative friends, building a road, building a school, helping to get health care, that's wasteful spending. But that war in Iraq, that's going to cost us over a trillion dollars, yeah, I wish we hadn't done that we would have been in a lot better shape fiscally.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That is a whole another show, so I'm going to...
(CROSSTALK)
FRANK: That's the problem. The problem is that we look at spending and say, "Oh, don't spend on highways. Don't spend on health care. But let's build Cold War weapons to defeat the Soviet Union when we don't need them. Let's have hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars going to the military without a check." Unless everything's on the table, then you're going to have a disproportionate hit in some places.
While Republicans whine about the spending in the proposed bill, no one seems to want to mention how much money we are wasting in this war of CHOICE overseas in Iraq.
Tonight in his pre-show interview President Obama said that most of the troops in Iraq will be home by the next SuperBowl, imagine how much money that will save.
I like seeing Barney Frank in interviews because he's one of the FEW Democrats that won't simply let the interviewer and/or Republicans just run over him. Remember when he went at it with Bill O'Rielly?
UPDATE: Some of you may not remember this, but President Obama gave a speech titled "The Cost of War" during the campaign, here's the video and a partial transcript:
The costs of war are greatest for the troops and those who love them, but we know that war has other costs as well. Yesterday, I addressed some of these other costs in a speech on the strategic consequences of the Iraq war. I spoke about how this war has diverted us from fighting al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and from addressing the other challenges of the 21st Century: violent extremism and nuclear weapons; climate change and poverty; genocide and disease.
And today, I want to talk about another cost of this war - the toll it has taken on our economy. Because at a time when we're on the brink of recession - when neighborhoods have For Sale signs outside every home, and working families are struggling to keep up with rising costs - ordinary Americans are paying a price for this war.
When you're spending over $50 to fill up your car because the price of oil is four times what it was before Iraq, you're paying a price for this war.
When Iraq is costing each household about $100 a month, you're paying a price for this war.
When a National Guard unit is over in Iraq and can't help out during a hurricane in Louisiana or with floods here in West Virginia, our communities are paying a price for this war.
And the price our families and communities are paying reflects the price America is paying. The most conservative estimates say that Iraq has now cost more than half a trillion dollars, more than any other war in our history besides World War II. Some say the true cost is even higher and that by the time it's over, this could be a $3 trillion war.
But what no one disputes is that the cost of this war is far higher than what we were told it would be. We were told this war would cost $50 to $60 billion, and that reconstruction would pay for itself out of Iraqi oil profits. We were told higher estimates were nothing but "baloney." Like so much else about this war, we were not told the truth.
What no one disputes is that the costs of this war have been compounded by its careless and incompetent execution - from the billions that have vanished in Iraq to the billions more in no-bid contracts for reckless contractors like Halliburton.
What no one disputes is that five years into this war, soldiers up at Fort Drum are having to wait more than a month to get their first mental health screening - even though we know that incidences of PTSD skyrocket between the second, third, and fourth tours of duty. We have a sacred trust to our troops and our veterans, and we have to live up to it.
What no one disputes is that President Bush has done what no other President has ever done, and given tax cuts to the rich in a time of war. John McCain once opposed these tax cuts - he rightly called them unfair and fiscally irresponsible. But now he has done an about face and wants to make them permanent, just like he wants a permanent occupation in Iraq. No matter what the costs, no matter what the consequences, John McCain seems determined to carry out a third Bush-term.
That's an outcome America can't afford. Because of the Bush-McCain policies, our debt has ballooned. This is creating problems in our fragile economy. And that kind of debt also places an unfair burden on our children and grandchildren, who will have to repay it.
UPDATE: In the comments some people are pointing out that this is the argument that needs to be made, well we need to put it out there then. Please DIGG this diary so more people can see the video of Frank and the one of President Obama.
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