US Education and Medical support is a disaster. Why is GWB spending $500B in Iraq and borrowing it from China?
538790
They are putting their kids in the lottery to hopefully get their kids a decent education.\n\nShall we tell the rest of the story or will that not fit your biased bullsh*t agenda.\n\nWhat the hell, you had your tenure so now its mine - except mine will be the truth.\n\nBush has spent more on education that any other President in history - Reference the Congressional record if you doubt.\n\nWhat schools all over the nation have done is put themselves in a system which does not allow for accountability, prohibits terminations of its worst teacher via the teachers union and refuses to all competition with schools in the private sector.\n\nLets see - "competition among drug companies is good for getting the best for your money" is what democrats say in the health care argument - why doesn't that argument work in education.  \n\n2 reasons - Kids don't vote and Dims love scaring the sh*t out of old people with threats of losing there medicare.
639047
Sadly, we are already losing it, if we haven't lost it completely.  The present American political leadership is not willing to spend any serious money on education, preferring to squander it on prisons, wars, and the futile pursuit of the War On (some) Drugs.  Local governments without rich tax bases cannot make up the shortfalls, even if they don't have spending caps imposed by ignorant legislators.
1100686
I believe that someday colleges and universities in the US will be able to provide free education...but not yet. I look forward to the day though.\n\nRe your question: When you say "Doesn't IT state that everyone is entitiled to a free education"....what is the IT you are referring to?? I don't think I have read that anywhere....and I read quite a bit.\n\nRegarding the war: I agree. Too long. Too much. Too little exit strategy. \n\nBut, let me ask you this: Is there EVER an obligation for a stronger nation to help out the people of another nation when those people get gassed and murdered? \n\nI happen to think that with strength comes obligation...ie, if a big guy sees an old lady's purse get snatched...and the big guy can stop the bad guy...isn't it his OBLIGATION to do so??? Did we have that OBLIGATION in Iraq??? Maybe, maybe not. Do we have that obligation in Darfur? Probably. Did we have that obligation in World War II to stop the Nazis? I think so.\n\nDebt is rising because we are funding an incredibly expensive war. Think what that money could do here in the US for education. But, lets say we achieve peace and stability in Iraq and in the Middle East....what is that worth? Zero? It is worth something....I just don't know what.\n\nClinton was charming....he was a proponent of some good domestic policies...but, his foreign relations and actions were bad. Really bad. That will not be what he is remembered for. \n\nI don't think Bush is smart. However, to say Clinton wasn't "out playing on a ranch or golfing while our country needed him..." is not fair. It would be like someone saying "...clinton was getting blown and playing with cigars while our country needed him." \n\nRemember, right now school money comes from taxes. When the economy slows, people make less $$...and therefore the government's income goes down. But, the schools' demands for money don't go down. The answer? Well, we could raise taxes, or we could try to get the economy going. Or, we could cut school spending. \n\nLots of issues....difficult choices....
391660
No it is not true, the USA owes NINE trillion dollars to the people that buy its bonds and treasury notes(these are debts that have to be paid with interest) The USA borrows the money so it can spend it on stuff we cannot afford so they can get votes. They figure, rightly, that most voters are too stupid to know the difference.\nThey could pay for the stuff by raising the taxes, but that is not a good way to get votes.\nThey could spend less but that is not a good way to get votes.\nThis is an inherent problem with a democracy with uninformed voters.\nThe solution is not easy. We have to inform(educate) voters and potential voters(kids) and this costs money. They do not want to sepnd money to inform the voters if it means that eventually the voters will get smart and vote them all out. So they keep the kids stupid by having bad schools and distracting them with TV and games etc. (bread and circuses) this is what caused Rome to fall. Stupidity!\nThey keep the adults stupid by owning and controlling the news (FOX) and rewarding stupidity.(look at who Bush gives medals to) This has worked well so far.\nLook at the intelligence level of the present President. He is an idiot elected by morons. WE ARE ALL DOOMED. All the flag waving and guns and yellow stickers on SUVs is not going to save us.\nWE OWE THE MONEY TO FOREIGN GOVERMENTS mostly, including Red China, and also a lot of rich republicans. you pay the interest to them after they authorize the government to pay it and then take it from your pocket or add it to your own debt which you will pay by inflation.\nASK YOURSELF, who benefits from rising interest rates, rich people who lend and collect interest or poor people who borrow and pay interest. Now you have your answer. YES the govt owes this money and YOU will be paying it and your children and your grandchildren if we do not stop spending money like drunken sailors on useless wars etc. ONLY THE DFENSE CONTRACTORS( LIKE HALLIBURTON) PROFIT FROM WAR.\n\nSOON China will own us and control us and your grandchildren will be learning Mandarin in school so they can get jobs as servants in China.\n\nIT IS TIME FOR RALPH NADER TO BE PRESIDENT! Both the republicans and the democrats have failed and neither can or will ever help us. They are too greedy, stupid and corrupt to do anything but squabble with each other over the spoils.
1047304
That's what they said with Iraq "stay the course"\n\nIt just gets worse and we get more in debt.\n\nAnd it is not only the $, all the talent that could have gone to building in America goes to Iraq to fight
62529
I corrected this as much as I could, everything that I corrected or suggested changing is in caps)  Also, it looks more like 3 paragraphs to me.\n\nIf we are there for oil,(WHERE IS THERE?) THEN think of it as a Monoploly game only the real estate is oil. China is a country that has a history of cheating and not doing honest business. What makes anyone think they will be honest allies in the future? They will BE as long as it benifits them. AN EXAMPLE IS, when they buy our debt so we can buy their stuff.\n\n Cnooc tried to buy Unical this year. They are trying to take over and BUY ALL OF the oil they can as is everyone. The only thing, however, is they are growing so strong that they DO actually pose a threat. I think the occupation in Iraq is defense. (IS THAT RELEVANT ABOUT IRAQ?) China, as we saw with CNOOC last year, is ALSO trying to buy everything. \n\nWe are just making sure our energy is secure, if it isn't, then we could be over taken and over thrown buy China, Russia, Iran, etc. That is the terror. We took care of our self interest and took a serious jerk out of power. What is wrong with that? Our military wants to be there or ANYWHERE else we send them to protect us.
280847
Tax money isn't being spent, it's being pi$$ed away. How many hundred of billions of the money we pay into the US government are being thrown away in a country that, before we attacked it, had little or nothing to do with America or it's security? How are the 80 billion dollars in tax breaks to the oil companies going to help the average American? How is the 3-5 billion dollars we give to Israel every year (Israel, by the way, is the 6th richest country in the world) helping the average American? Taxation is equal to theft - the taking of money and property by force. While I have no problem with the US helping it's own and humanitarian aid to other countries, and gladly give my tax dollars, the fact that the government can't even work out a budget that is anywhere near balanced is despicable.
1175830
They are working but the revenues are currently going to the Iraqi govt.  They better provide us with some free juice though for the $$$$$$$ we are spending to rebuild their crappy country.
157448
It may be because they will have a lot of backing from the US and other western nations/business/contractors. The US will look very foolish if Iraq fails economically so every step will be taken to guide them into prosperity. \n\nHowever, insurgency and other threats may seek to stall growth there which of course would make it a poor investment. \n\nIf the people view economic growth as a prosper for Iraqis and Muslims, then they will allow it to grow with US guidance. If they see it as another imposition of Western controll they will boycot and loot that growth. \n\nAn emerging markets investment may be a wiser choice.
1152192
The United States is running a huge balance of payments deficit by spending more overseas than it exports, which I take it includes its expenditure in Iraq. Also, all Governments borrow and presumably Bush is mortgaging the United States' future.\n\nAs an Englishman I am all too conscious that the United Kingdom's power in the world was ruined by its debt funded expenditure on the First and Second World Wars. The Cambridge historian Correlli Barnett wrote a series of books (e.g. "Audit of War") to point out that in the end there is no point in exercising miltary power at the expense of capital investment.
860277
Do not you get it? It is an oil war! The west wanted to control the middle east to control the OIL , manipulate the prices (the price of a barrel has tripled since the war with no clear reason) so it becomes difficult for China to get the energy they need to compete with US. \nThe British media and American media are nothing but a few millionaires who run the show. Most of the British reads "The SUN", "THE MIRROR", "DAILY MAIL"...more than 10 millions read this newspapers everyday with an average IQ of 2! the respectable newspapers like "the independent", "the Guardian"...are read by few hundred thousands..the majority of the Americans do not read newspapers or watch news...\nThe so called western democracy is a BIG lie, there is no difference between BUSH and Saddam (BOTH THUGS) no difference between the prisoners in Guantanamo and Abu Ghreib and those in the time of Saddam. The western media just publish what big guys want. Do not forget the Jewish Lobby who got a hand in each western newspaper (the sun, daily mail...)\n\nI stopped watching British and American news. Try Euronews, DW (German in English) you get the whole facts!
597610
I think its China. We borrowed billions for the Iraq war. Though we do also owe a lot to France.
952510
Its true, the government panders to big business. When I was a student the loans for tuition just piled up and now we have to pay it all back. \n\nThere is money for a war in Iraq. And money for a war in Afghanistan. These people have not really upset us. I think we have the wrong government. They should be voted out. \n\nWe should not have to get young people starting out to start with thousands of pounds of debts while we spend billions of pounds on a war in a country that has nothing to do with us. \n\nIf America has problems with people let them sort it out themselves, we are not rich enough for that sort of adventure.
997952
Paul Wolfowitz, who fashioned the phony intellectual underpinnings of this catastrophe, told us that Iraqi oil revenues would cover the cost of reconstruction. He was as wrong about that as the president was about the weapons of mass destruction. (And as wrong as Dick Cheney was last June when he said the insurgency was in its last throes.). Here are the facts: The war so recklessly launched by the amateurs in the Bush White House has already taken scores of thousands of lives, and will ultimately cost the United States $1 trillion to $2 trillion. No one has been held accountable for this. While Mr. Bush's approval ratings are low, the public has been largely indifferent to the profound suffering in Iraq. This is primarily for two reasons: Because most Americans have no immediate personal stake in the war, and because the administration and the news media keep the worst of the suffering at a safe distance from the U.S. population. \nThe killing of American troops is usually kissed off with a paragraph or two in the major papers, and a sentence or two, at best, on national newscasts. \n(Imagine if someone in your office, sitting at a desk across from you, were suddenly blown to bits, splattering you with his or her blood. You wouldn't get over it for the rest of your life. This is what happens to the Americans and other racist crusaders on daily basis in Iraq.) \nThe 250,000 of Iraqis who are killed - including babies and children who are shot to death, blown up, or incinerated - remain completely unknown to the American public. So not only is there very little empathy for the suffering of Iraqis, there is virtually no sense among ordinary Americans of a shared responsibility for that suffering. Despite the frequently expressed fantasies expressed by President Bush and some of the leading politicians of both parties, the idea of a U.S. victory in Iraq is an illusion. The nightmarish violence is rising, not receding. Iraq is not being pacified. A suicide bomber blew himself up in a bustling market in Basra over the weekend, killing 27 and wounding scores. On Sunday, 20 people were stopped and pulled from their vehicles on a highway near Baquba and shot to death. \nJohn Burns, writing in yesterday's New York Times, told us: "The death toll in one of the most grisly recent attacks, in the village of Hadid, near the Diyala provincial capital of Baquba, rose to 17 on Tuesday when the police delivered nine severed heads to the Baquba morgue in the fruit boxes in which they were found in the village." \nEight other heads had previously been found. \nInstead of beginning to pull our troops out of Iraq, we are sending more in. The permanent Iraqi government, which was supposed to be the answer to everybody's prayers, is a study in haplessness. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al Qaeda's man in Iraq, remains at large. (As does Osama bin Laden, somewhere in Pakistan.) \nAs was the case with Vietnam, the war in Iraq is a fool's errand. There is no clear mission for American troops in Iraq. No one can really say what the dead have died for. And yet the dying continues. \nMilitary commanders in the field in Iraq admit in private reports to the Pentagon the war "is lost" and that the U.S. military is unable to stem the mounting violence killing 1,000 Iraqi civilians a month. Even worse, they report the massacre of Iraqi civilians at Haditha is "just the tip of the iceberg" with overstressed, out-of-control Americans soldiers pushed beyond the breaking point both physically and mentally. "We are in trouble in Iraq," says retired army general Barry McCaffrey. "Our forces can't sustain this pace, and I'm afraid the American people are walking away from this war."\n\nhttp://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11674.htm\n\nNumber Of Iraqi Civilians Slaughtered By The Americans: As Many As 250,000\n\nhttp://www.marchforjustice.com/shock&awe.php\n\nCost of War\nBelow is a ru
899020
It is just part of the free trade economy.  Labor jobs Will go where  labor is the cheapest.  Where we are failing miserably is not putting enough money into our schools and teaching our children the skills they need to survive today.  It is quite a mess,  and one the politicians really do not want to tackle because it will be  so expensive and defiantly mean raising our taxes.  Then we have to trust Washington to do the right thing with our money which is quite a risk.  Our debt has doubled and we are going to need tax dollars to save our kids and there kids. It is quite a complicated mess, and a really good question.
945525
When  you include everything, all our debt, the number is over 50 trillion.  " A billion here and a billion there, soon you are talking about real money."  It is all a colossal shell game perpetrated on the public.  Social Security was supposed to be a fund that contributions went in to, and benefits were to be taken from the interest.  If left alone, there would be more than enough money now to draw from.  Instead, Congress adopted another criminal  practice and started, in the sixties, dumping that money in the general fund to be spent every year on their pet projects, like Vietnam.  Today is  the same with Iraq.  I imagine they call it creative bookkeeping 101.
927334
If war was ever a worthwhile venture it would be different. But this is not war, it's a battle ground for control of a region and it's resources.  Unfortunately it's still out of control with no real solution in sight.  The Bush wealth wagon loaded with oil realizes that the loss of control means loss of wealth and the demise of an industry full of greedy corporate fat cats sucking blood from hard working commoners dependent on fuel to eke out a living.  Democrats somehow always seem to botch something and lose their governmental footage leaving the people without a prayer and under the feet of the Corporate based mentality of the Republicans. Hopefully this will change and maybe the Democrats can keep their zippers up. Unfortunately the surplus was squandered by Bush and replaced with a national debt that will trickle down to your great grandchildren.