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Originally Posted by CharlieG
it doesn't require any FEDERAL money - folks, the government doesn't run the electric company, so the "Iraq Money" comments have nothing to do with it.
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An outright and naive statement. One need only learn the lessons of recent history. A lesson from history so obvious that I appalled I have to explain it.
When a federal government spends money it does not have, then it does so at the entire economy's expense. Vietnam literally sucked the economic growth out of America. Massive (and secret) spending on Vietnam in the late sixties and early 70s caused American cars to suffer massive quality problems starting in the 1970s and lasting into the 1980s. American tires had a 50+% pre-mature failure rate as companies cut costs. Buildings were wired with aluminum - a problem we still live with today. Homes were built without plywood reinforced walls (instead we used a soft fiber board called Celotex). Pot holes and street resurfacing literally stopped - does anyone remember the massive pot hole problems in the late 1970s?
To continue paying those debts, America had to literally sell off the world's third largest manufacturing base - American owned industries in Europe. American wealth and economic stability (every part that was not part of the federal government) deteriorated because the federal government spent money it did not have. When a large economic entity suddenly spends beyond its budget, those funds come at the expense of everything else. Obviously.
Did we not learn from Napoleon? Turning a strong economy into a disaster even though a government budget is separate from all those other economic entities. Napoleon's wars literally undermined the entire French economy - even though the entire economy does not budget the wars.
Again, posted here is common knowledge to those who studied history or even learned the "I was there" lessons from Vietnam. Posted here is an insult against those who think it costs nothing because they are different budgets. Another painfully obvious lesson created by a lying president who spents beyond his budget - stagflation. What is affected by stagflation? Stagflation literally destroys all other budgets.
Athens was once THE world power. Then Athens decided to save the world from Sparta. Invasion of Sryacuse undermined the entire Athenian economy. Why? The war was fought in Syracuse - far from Athens. Accounting says losses in Syracuse have no effect on domestic Athenian budgets. But accounting can lie if we spin it. Reality. Massive overseas spending on useless wars causes everything else to be more expensive and the domestic infastructure to wither.
Overspending in one budget undermines all others. $400billion in Iraq means we must now stop doing the maintenance and infastructure upgrades that once kept America strong. For example, we cannot put those FL utilities underground and we cannot properly educate our kids. We spent almost nothing to rescue Kuwait. The entire expense of that war was paid for by all other nations because America did not have a 'screw you all' attitude. Japan paid the most. We spent little because we had a president then with intelligence. Therefore that war did not cause massive budget problems in state governments and electric companies.
Don't give me bean counter nonsense about those $400billion coming from another budget. Otherwise I will suspect you are George Jr - MBA and therefore a liar. It is rather silly that I even have to post what should be common knowledge to all who took history courses. Foreign boondoogles paid by a federal government means all other budgets get stressed. Simple things that would make America resilient such as underground utilities in FL will not happen because we decided to spend more on a personal vendetta in Iraq. Learn from history. The economies and infastructure that maintain massive militaries fail fastest - even though the military comes from *other* budgets.