The Economy Of War

In his third major speech in three days, Barack Obama tackled the war's impact on the economy.

“Instead of fighting this war, we could be fighting for the people of West Virginia,” Senator Obama said today. “For what folks in this state have been spending on the Iraq war, we could be giving health care to nearly 450,000 of your neighbors, hiring nearly 30,000 new elementary school teachers, and making college more affordable for over 300,000 students. We could be fighting to put the American dream within reach for every American – by giving tax breaks to working families, offering relief to struggling homeowners, reversing President Bush’s cuts to the Manufacturing Extension Partnership, and protecting Social Security today, tomorrow, and forever. That’s what we could be doing instead of fighting this war.”

The full text is at the link. Now, this is something of an oversimplification. In a direct sense, the war in Iraq is propping up the economy, because it's adding manufacturing jobs in the defense industry. What I'd like to see Obama do is carry this critique forward. People believe that Iraq spending hurts the economy, so we're already halfway there. What hurts the economy is unnecessary DEFENSE spending in general; wars are started from time to time simply to justify that spending. The defense budget is a sacred cow that generations have considered off-limits in a bipartisan fashion. If you want to call it the Iraq recession, fine; people are going to believe that, since they hate Bush, hate our involvement in Iraq, and think that Bush is clueless on the economy. But I hope that this goes the next step - talking about our unbalanced economy in general, with billions squandered on contracting abuse and outdated weapons systems. This could be a real point of contrast with "More Wars" McCain.