Perdido 03

Perdido 03

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

John Cole: Fire Bad Teachers, That'll Pay For The Freedom Bombs In Libya

He's being sarcastic, of course.

Who wouldn't be sarcastic when all we hear is how teachers make too much money and they're wrecking the country with their Cadillac pensions and gold-plated health care plans and fancy-schmancy $44,000 a year salaries and then we read this?

The first day of Operation Odyssey Dawn had a price tag that was well over $100 million for the U.S. in missiles alone. And the U.S. military, which remains in the lead now in its third day, has pumped millions more into air- and sea-launched strikes targeting air-defense sites and ground-force positions along Libya’s coastline.

The ultimate total that the United States spends will hinge on the length and scope of the strikes as well as on the contributions of its coalition allies. But Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said on Monday that the U.S. costs could “easily pass the $1 billion mark on this operation, regardless of how well things go.”

The Pentagon has the money in its budget to cover unexpected contingencies and can also use fourth-quarter dollars to cover the costs of operations now. “They’re very used to doing this operation where they borrow from Peter to pay Paul,” said Gordon Adams, who served as the Office of Management and Budget’s associate director for national security during the Clinton administration.

However, there comes a point when there simply isn’t enough cash to pay for everything. The White House said on Monday it was not prepared to request emergency funding yet, but former Pentagon comptroller Dov Zakheim estimated that the Defense Department would need to send a request for supplemental funding to Capitol Hill if the U.S. military’s share of Libya operations expenses tops $1 billion.

It's great that we can not only cut teacher salaries and educational programs to pay for the war, but how about we cut food stamps too!

Just like Obama did to keep his precious Race to the Top merit pay/charter school boondoggle funded last year.

Oh, and maybe we can raise taxes on families making less than $40,000 a year so that we can cut taxes on people making over $250,000 a year AND drop the $100 million dollar freedom bombs all over Tripoli?

Just like Obama did to extend the Bush tax cuts!

Oh, yes, this IS change we can all believe in.

If by we you mean neo-con and neoliberal corporate whores who love the profit potential war brings (can you say "oil speculation") and get hard-ons swaggering like tough guys from half a world away from the fighting.

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