War Dollars

Background: We all know we have been in war with Iraq and Afghanistan for many years now because its probably been in the news everyday. Some people don't know though, of how much has been spent on these wars. Its brought our national debt to over 12 trillion dollars with all the spending we are doing to help support the war. Some think the cause is good and the money we spent on the war has been well worth it. We have taken out many bad influential leaders out of both countries, and now in Iraq we are making great steps toward a democracy ran government over there. We are still making good progress in Afghanistan, and are fighting hard to over take Al Qaida over there. Many people believe though that the war effort is worthless though... That Congress has waisted billions of tax payer dollars which has brought made the national deficit high every year which contributes to the national debt. A lot of people believe we are doing more harm there then good which has cost many American Soldiers there lives. Congress has used power of the purse in the past to help slow down wars because they can control what war bills make it to the president. So if they feel the same and are influenced by they American people, they could really help slow down these wars and bring an end to them.

Opinion: I think that we need to pull out of Iraq with our combat troops and send help to keep setting up there government and to train Iraq troops to take over. We however need to keep fighting in Afghanistan because Al Qaida is still on the rise, and we need to take them out in there strong hold of Afghanistan. I feel our job is done in Iraq, and now we can focus more energy in Afghanistan that will in turn make the process of fighting go faster which will help the war go by faster. Then we can stop paying for 2 wars, do a great job fighting in Afghanistan, finish up there quicker which means we don't have to pay for the war as long as we need to. We can then focus on health care and social security and our economy. All the issues that we need to take care of to help our country grow stronger into the future. President Obama now is sending up to 30,000 more troops to help out saying: "We haven't seen the kinds of infrastructure improvements; we haven't seen the security improvements; we haven't seen the reduction in narco-trafficking; we haven't seen a reliance on rule of law in Afghanistan that would make people feel confident that the central government can, in fact, deliver on its promises. We've got to ramp up our development approach."

Issue #2

Spending What We can Afford

Issue #3

Social Insecurity